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ADDRESS 



TO THE 



inhabitants nf Hem Mum ana California, 



ON THE 



OMISSION BY CONGRESS TO PMVIDE THEM WITH 



TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS, 



AND ON 



THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EYILS OF SLAVERY. 




NEW YORK : 
PUBLISHED BY THE AM. & FOR. ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

WILLIAM HARNED, AGENT, NO. 61 JOHN STREET. 

1849. 



TO THE INHABITANTS 



OF 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 



Friends and Fellow-Countrymen : 

A number of citizens interested in your welfare, and anxious to 
promote your prosperity, have deputed us to address you in the 
present crisis of your affairs. It may be in our power to com- 
municate to you facts with which you are not familiar, and to 
offer you considerations deserving your reflection. We therefore 
solicit your patient and dispassionate attention. 

You complain that since your annexation to the United States, 
you have been denied the protection and advantages of civil 
government. Your complaint is well-founded, and the solemn 
promises made to you in the name of the Federal Government 
have been most flagrantly violated. Pains have been and will be 
taken to deceive you as to the persons who have, in denying you 
a government, been regardless alike of your rights and your in- 
terests. Permit us first to remind you of the solemn and official 
pledges made to you, and then to show you by whom, and from 
what motives, those pledges have been broken. 

On the 7th July, 1846, Commodore Sloat landed at Monterey, 
and taking possession of California by right of conquest, declared 
in his proclamation addressed to the inhabitants, " Henceforth 
California will be a portion of the United States, and its peace- 
able inhabitants will enjoy the same rights and privileges as the 
citizens of any other portion of that territory, with all the rights. 
and privileges they now enjoy, together with the privilege of 
choosing their own magistrates and other officers, for the adminis- 
tration of justice among themselves." 

On the 17th August of the same year, R. F. Stockton, " Gov- 



eraor of the fcerrnc *fiforai& vianiAiioa thus con- 

^~-i :7e 7- -7 >- -•-- :j J* ; — :-_: .v. re 5 :..: 

_ : wM be j -.." : ^ > - ts . .-;.. v ?:.-. 7;-:> 77." 7:777: :: 
i/»i m*£ liars mmfer ft» 4Uar by which the other territories of 
in *re uvuIm** * «m? jvt*rto£" General 

- 1847, 

inbabhazKs, m which, a 

is xbe 

.5 

?dfc*t. a m yoerrwmemi like that of their own 

"-" """ _ "" >-' : "■'-" -^ 7777': :az7s :o exer- 

» ibe licfcc? nth the choice of their on repre- 

-' ' ~- —'\ '' : ' *--'- - ' - -"--" - '•" i-"f~ :-. >: 

: " " - : -' : - : ■'--"" ~ -.'- : _£- — inz-r ifSTrei irr 

-*- " - rz " ~ """"-- - ^ - 7: -7. 77.7 - > 1 

: 

- . _ - - - - - _ 

WmK 71 77 I>f 7 " . -• ' _ - 





- '-. '• - . ..- 

1 _t: ■""■"-"- : - "-"-" i_vr — --- 

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Hence 

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the bilL 

- '-r— --?-.: : '••■- 2i-:~:iir:ered by : '.-■ President's iefegalies 1 

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territorial government for that territory, and in compliance with 
the wish of the inhabitants inserted in it a clause securing: them 
forever from the curse of slavery. This bill became a law at the 
end of the Session, but the President on affixing his signature to 
it, made a declaration in writing that he would have vetoed a 
similar bill for you! Regardless of this insulting announcement, 
the House of Representatives early the next Session prepared 
two separate bills, giving a territorial government to New Mexico 
and California, in conformity with the previous pledges, and simi- 
lar in its provisions to that given to Oregon, and protecting the 
two territories from slavery. For want of time, only the bill for 
California was passed. It was sent to the Senate, and that body 
by a formal vote refused even to take it into consideration ! On 
the 13th December, the Petition from the people of New Mexico, 
praying for a territorial government, and to be protected from 
slavery, was presented to the Senate. Mr. Calhoun, the leader 
of the slaveholders, instantly denounced it as " disrespectful and 
most insolent," and the petitioners were spoken of as*" a con- 
quered people." 

At the close of the Session the usual appropriation bill pro- 
viding for the expenses of the Federal Government was passed by 
the House of Representatives. The Slaveholders now thought 
they had an opportunity of coercing your friends into a sacrifice of 
your interests. A clause was added to the bill extending theConsti- 
tution and laws of the United States over the two Territories, and 
vesting in the President unlimited powers of government, and the 
appointment of officers at his discretion. It mattered not that all 
this was in contemptuous violation of the pledges given you. A 
purpose was to be served. By the acknowledged laws of nations, 
a conquered people retain their own laws till altered by the new 
sovereign. Your laws prohibiting Slavery had not been repealed 
by the conquest. It was contended that the extension of the 
constitution and laws of the United States over the two terri- 
tories would virtually repeal the existing laws, and thus open 
the door for the establishment of negro slavery among you. The 
loss of the appropriation bill would throw the whole fiscal 
affairs of the goverment into confusion. The debts due to in- 
dividuals would be suspended. Salaries would remain unpaid, 
&c, <fec. It was hoped your friends would shrink from the re- 
sponsibility of causing such wide-spread disorder by rejecting the 
bill on account of the obnoxious clause outraging your rights. 
Yet your interests required that some government should be es- 
tablished for you, and almost any temporary government was bet- 



ter than none. The House had in vain attempted to give you a 
proper one, and to preserve you from anarchy, they accepted th<- 
miserable substitute provided by the slaveholders, but defeated 
the object for which that substitute had been contrived, by ad 
ding a clause recognizing and continuing in force your existing 
laws. On this the Senate abandoned their plan, passed the ap 
propriation bill securing their own pay, and adjourned, leavin 
you a prey to anarchy. 

Soon after the adjournment, Mr. Foote, one of the Scnatoj 
devoted to the extension of Slavery, published an article declaring 
that he was " authorized to say" that if the amendment recogniz- 
ing your existing laws had been agreed to, " it would inevitably 
have defeated the civil and diplomatic appropriation bill, as Pres- 
ident Polk had already in part prepared his veto to the bill /" 

The Slave power has resolved that you shall have no govern- 
ment but such as shall establish the dominion of the Whip. From 
a dominion so loathsome and blighting, your northern friends have 
hitherto rescued you, and to explain their motives, and to invite 
your earnest cooperation, we now proceed to lay before you a 
statement of some of the moral and political evils experienced in 
the United States from the same accursed institution with which 
you are threatened. * IS ever have the comparative influences of 
free and slave labor on public prosperity and happiness been more 
fairly tested, or more certainly decided than in this country. Of 
the thirty States composing our Union, fifteen maintain and en- 
force, and fifteen reject and abhor the principle of property in 
men, women and children. By pondering the facts we are about 
to present, you will be enabled to judge whether your northern 
friends in the course they have pursued have consulted or sacri- 
ficed your true interests. 

Slavery is an institution exclusively for the rich. We might 
as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle and studs of 
horses, as gangs of negroes. When an infant will bring^ an 
hundred, a women four or five hundred, and a man from eight 
hundred to a thousand dollars, slaves are not commodities to 
be found in the cabins of the poor. There is also a peculiarity in 
slave labor that necessarily confines it to the wealthy. The wo- 
men and children, being properly, must be owned together with 
the male laborers. Hence it is almost impossible to find a mas- 
ter who is the possessor of only a single slave. Our last census 
shows that the two sexes among the slaves are about equal in 
number, and that there are two children under ten years of age 
for every male above that age. Hence if a planter owns three 



8 

men, we may take it for granted that his slave family consists of 
at least twelve persons, viz. : three men, three women, and six 
children. It has been well ascertained by various statistics that 
the whole number of slaveholders in the United States is proba- 
bly less than 248,000, not one-third of the adult white male pop- 
ulation of the United States. Yet this small body of men en- 
gross the greater portion of the land and wealth of the slave 
region, forming in fact a powerful feudal aristocracy, possessing 
nearly three millions of serfs, and governing and oppressing at 
pleasure the rest of the population. They are always banded to- 
gether for the preservation and extension of their own power, 
and always, for obvious reasons, endeavoring to identify their 
private interests with the public welfare. In what manner that 
welfare is promoted by their guardianship, we will now show you. 

I. INCREASE OF POPULATION. 

The ratio of increase of population, especially in this country, 
is one of the surest tests of public prosperity. Let us then 
here examine the impartial testimony of the late census. From 
this we learn that the increase of population in the free States 
from 1830 to 1840, was at the rate of 3 8* per cent., while the 
increase of the free population in the slave States was only 23 per 
cent. Why this difference of 15 in the two ratios ? No other 
cause can be assigned than slavery, which drives from their bor- 
ders many of the virtuous and enterprising, and at the same time 
deters emigrants from other States and from foreign countries 
from settling among them. 

The influence of slavery on population is strikingly illustrated 
by a comparison between Kentucky and Ohio. These two States 
are of nearly equal areas, Kentucky however having about 3000 
square miles more than the other.* They are separated only by 
a river, and are both remarkable for the fertility of their soil; but 
one has, from the beginning, been cursed with slavery, and the 
other blessed with freedom. Now mark their respective careers. 

In 1*792, Kentucky was erected into a State, and Ohio in 1802. 

Free population of Kentucky. Free population of Ohio. 

1790 61,227.. a wilderness. 

1800 180,612, 45,365 

1810 325,950, 230,760 

1820 437,585, 581,434 

1830 522,704, 937,903 

1840 597,570, 1,519,467 

* American Almanac for 1843, p. 206 



9 

The representation of the two States in Congress, has been as 
follows : 

1802, Kentucky 6, Ohio 1, 

1812, " 9, " 6, 

1822, " 12, " 14, 

1832, " 13, " 19, m 

1842, " 10, " 21, F 

The value of land, other things being equal, is in proportion to 
the density of the population. Now the population of Ohio is 
38.8 to a square mile, while the free population of Kentucky is 
but 14.2 to a square mile — and probably the price of land in the 
two States is much in the same proportion. We are told, much 
of the wealth is invested in negroes — yet it obviously is a wealth 
that impoverishes ; and no stronger evidence of the truth of this 
assertion is needed, than the comparative price of land in the free 
and slave States. The two principal cities of Kentucky and Ohio 
are Louisville arid Cincinnati ; the former with a population of 
21,210, the latter with a population of 46,338. Why this differ- 
ence ? The question is answered by the Louisville Journal. The 
editor, speaking of the two rival cities, remarks, "The most po- 
tent cause of the more rapid advancement of Cincinnati than 
Louisville is the absence of slavery. The same influences 
which made Ohio the young giant of the West, and is advancing 
Indiana to a grade higher than Kentucky, have operated in the 
Queen City. They have no dead weight to carry, and conse- 
quently have the advantage in the race." 

In 1840, Mr. C. M. Clay, a member of the Kentucky Legisla- 
ture, published a pamphlet against the repeal of the law prohibit- 
ing the importation of slaves from the other States. We extract 
the following : 

" The world is teeming with improved machinery, the combined 
development of science and art. To us it is all lost ; we are com- 
paratively living in centuries that are gone ; loe cannot make it, we 
cannot use it when made. Ohio is many years younger, and pos- 
sessed of fewer advantages than our State. Cincinnati has manu- 
factories to sustain her ; last year she put up one thousand 
houses. Louisville, with superior natural advantages, as all the 
world knows, wrote ' to rent,' upon many of her houses. Ohio 
is a free State, Kentucky a slave State." 

Mr. Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, in a pamphlet published 
the same year, and on the same subject, draws the following 
comparison between Virginia and New York : 

" In 1*790, Virginia, with *70,000 square miles of territory, 



10 

contained a population of 749,308. New York, upon a surface 
of 45,658 square miles, contained a population of 344,120. 
This statement exhibits in favor of Virginia a difference of 24,242 
square miles of territory, and 408,188 in population, which is the 
double of New York, and 68,600 more. In 1830, after a race of 
forty years, Virginia is found to contain 1,211,405 souls, and New 
York 1,918,608, which exhibits a difference in favor of New 
York of 607,203. The increase on the part of Virginia will be 
perceived to be 463,187, starting from a basis more than double 
as large as that of New York. The increase of New York, upon 
a basis of 340,120, has been 1,578,391 human beings. Virginia 
has increased in a ratio of 61 per cent., and New York in that of 
566 per cent. 

"The total amount of property in Virginia under the assess- 
ment of 1838, was $21 1,930,508. The aggregate value of real and 
personal property in New York, in 1839, was $654,000,000, ex- 
hibiting an excess in New York over Virginia of capital of $442,- 
069,492. 

" Statesmen may differ about policy, or the means to be em- 
ployed in the promotion of the public good, but surely they 
ought to be agreed as to what prosperity means. I think there 
can be no dispute that New York is a greater, richer, a more 
prosperous and powerful State than Virginia. What has occa- 
sioned the difference ? There is but one explana- 
tion of the facts I have shown. The clog that has stayed the 
march of her people, the incubus that has weighed down her 
enterprise, strangled her commerce, kept sealed her exhaustless 
fountains of mineral wealth, and paralyzed her arts, manufactures 
and improvement, is NEGRO SLAVERY." 

These statements were made before the results of the last 
census were known. By the census of 1840, it appears that in 
the ten preceding years, 

The population of Virginia has increased 28,392 

In the same time the population of N. Y. increased 710,413 
The rate of increase in Virginia was 2.3 per cent. 

" " New York, 33.7 " 

Virginia has 12.5 free inhabitants to a square mile. 
New York 52.7 " " « « 

In 1790, Massachusetts, with Maine, had but 378,717 inhabitants. 

Maryland, 319,728 " 

In 1840, Massachusetts alone, 737,699 " 

" Maryland, 469,232 " 

Now let it be recollected that Maryland is nearly double the 



11 

size of Massachusetts. In the last there are 08.3 free inhabitant! 
to the square mile ; in the former only 27. 2. 

If we turn to the new States, we find that slavery and freedom 
have the same influence on population as in the old. Take, for 
instance, Michigan and Arkansas. They came into the Union 
about the same time — 

In 1830, the population of Arkansas was 30,388 

In 1840, " " 97,574 

In 1830, " Michigan, 31,639 

In 1840, " " 212,267 

The ratio of increase of white inhabitants, for the last ten 
years, has been in Arkansas as 200 per cent; in Michigan, 574 
per cent. In both instances the increase has been chiefly owing 
to immigration ; but the ratio shows the influence of slavery in 
retarding immigration. Compare also Alabama and Illinois — 

In 1830, the free population of Alabama, was 191,975 

Illinois, 157,455 



Excess in favor of Alabama 34,520 



In 1840, free population of Illinois, 476,183 

" " ' " Alabama, 337,224 



Excess in favor of Illinois, 138,959 

We surely need not detain you with farther details on this head, 
to convince you what an enormous sacrifice of happiness and 
prosperity is now offered on the altar of slavery. But of the 
character and extent of this sacrifice you have as yet had only 
a partial glimpse. Let us proceed to examine 

II. THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN THE SLAVE 

STATES. 

The maxim that " Knowledge is power," has ever more or less 
influenced the conduct of aristocracies. Education elevates the 
inferior classes of society, teaches them their rights, and points 
out the means of enforcing them. Of course, it tends to diminish 
the influence of wealth, birth, and rank. In 1671, Sir William 
Berkley, then Governor of Virginia, in his answer to the inquiries 
of the Committee of the Colonies, remarked, " I thank God that 
there are no free schools nor printing presses, and I hope we 
shall not have them these hundred years." The spirit of Sir 
William seems still to preside in the councils of his own Virginia, 
and to actuate those of the other slave States. 

The power of the slaveholders, as we have already showed 



12 

you, depends on the acquiescence of the major part of the white 
inhabitants in their domination. It cannot be, therefore, the in- 
terest or the inclination of the sagacious and reflecting among 
them, to promote the intellectual improvement of the inferior 
class. 

In the free States, on the contrary, where there is no caste an- 
swering to your slaveholders — where the People literally partake 
in the government, mighty efforts are made for general education ; 
and in most instances, elementary instruction is, through the public 
liberality, brought within the reach of the children of the poor. 
Lamentable experience proves that such is not the case where 
slaveholders bear rule. 

The last census gives us the number of white persons over 
twenty years of age in each State, who cannot read and write. 
It appears that these persons are to the whole white population 
in the several States as follows, viz. : 



Connecticut, 


1 to 


every 


568 


Louisiana, 


1 to 


every 


38£ 


Vermont, 


1 


tt 


473 


Maryland, 


1 


tt 


27 


N. Hamp., 


1 


tt 


310 


Mississippi, 


1 


<( 


20 


Mass., 


1 


<( 


166 


Delaware, 


1 


tt 


18 


Maine, 


1 


« 


108 


S. Carolina, 


1 


tt 


17 


Michigan, 


1 


t* 


97 


Missouri, 


1 


tt 


16 


R. Island, 


1 


tt 


67 


Alabama, 


1 


tt 


15 


New Jersey, 


1 


tt 


58 


Kentucky, 


1 


ti 


13£ 


New York, 


1 


tt 


56 


Georgia, 


1 


tt 


13 


Penn., 


1 


tt 


50 


Virginia, 


1 


tt 


124 


Ohio, 


1 


tt 


43 


Arkansas, 


1 


tt 


Hi 


Indiana, 


1 


tt 


18 


Tennessee, 


1 


t< 


11 


Illinois, 


1 


tt 


17 


N. Carolina, 


1 


tt 


h* 



It will be observed by looking at this table, that Indiana and 
Illinois are the only free States, which in point of education are 
surpassed by any of the slave States : for this disgraceful cir- 
cumstance three causes may- be assigned, viz., their recent settle 
ment, the influx of foreigners, and emigration from the slave 
States. The returns from New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey 
and Pennsylvania, are greatly affected by the vast number of 
foreigners congregated" in their cities, and employed in their 
manufactories and on their public works. In Ohio, also, there is 

* This summary from the return of the census, is copied from the 
Richmond (Va.) Compiler. 



13 

a large foreign population ; and it is well known that comparatively 
few emigrants from Europe seek a residence in the slave States, 
where there is little or no employment to invite them. But what 
a commentary on slavery and slaveholders is afforded by the gross 
ignorance prevailing in the old States of South Carolina, Virginia, 
and North Carolina 1 But let us proceed. The census gives a 
return of '' scholars at public charge." 

Of these, there are in the free States, 432,173 

slave States, 35,580 

Ohio alone has 51,812 such scholars, — more than are to be 
found in the 13 slave States ! Her neighbor Kentucky has 
429 ! ! Let us compare in this particular the largest and the 
smallest State in the Union. 

Virginia has scholars at public charge 9,791 

Rhode IslanS 10,912* 

But we have some official confessions, which give a still more 
deplorable account of Southern ignorance. In 1837, Governor 
Clarke, in his message to the Kentucky Legislature, remarked, 
" By the computation of those most familiar with the subject, one 

THIRD OF THE ADULT POPULATION OF THE STATE ARE UNABLE 
TO WRITE THEIR NAMES." 

Governor Campbell reported to the Virginia Legislature, that 
from the returns of 98 clerks, it appeared that of 4614 applica- 
tions for marriage licenses in 1837, no less than 1047 were made 
by men unable to write. 

These details will enable you to estimate the impudence of the 
following plea in behalf of slavery : 

" It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion 
of our citizens from the necessity of bodily labor, that we have 
leisure for intellectual pursuits, and the means of attaining a liberal 
education." — Chancellor Harper of South Carolina on Slavery. 
— Southern Literary Messenger, Oct. 1838. 

Whatever may be the leisure enjoyed by the slaveholders, they 
are careful not to afford the means of literary improvement to 
their fellow-citizens who are too poor to possess slaves, and who 
are, by their very ignorance, rendered more fit instruments for 
doing the will, and guarding the human property of the wealthier 
class. 



See American Almanac for 1842, page 226. 



14 



III. INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE. 

In a community so unenlightened as that of the slave States, 
it is a matter of course that the arts and sciences must languish, 
and the industry and enterprise of the country be oppressed by 
a general torpor. Hence multitudes will be without regular and 
profitable employment, and be condemned to poverty and num- 
berless privations. The very advertisements in the newspapers 
show that, for a vast proportion of the comforts and conveniences 
of life, the} 7- are dependent on Northern manufactures and me- 
chanics. Slavery has rendered labor disgraceful ; and where 
this is the case, industry is necessarily discouraged. The great 
staple of the South is cotton ; and Ave have no desire to 
undervalue its importance. It is, however, worthy of re- 
mark, that its cultivation affords a livelihood to only a 
small proportion of the free inhabitants ; and tcarcely to any 
of those we are now addressing. Cotton is the product of slave 
labor, and its profits at home are confined almost exclusively to 
the slaveholders. Yet on account of this article, we hear frequent 
vaunts of the agricultural riches of the South. With the ex- 
ception of cotton, it is difficult to distinguish your agricultural pro- 
ducts arising from slaves, and from free labor. But admitting, 
what we know is not the fact, that all the other productions of 
the soil are raised exclusively by free labor, we learn from the 
census, that the agricultural products of the North exceed those 
of the South, cotton excepted, 8226,219,714. Here then we 
have an appalling proof of the paralyzing influence of slavery on 
the industry of the whites. 

In every community a large portion of the inhabitants are de- 
barred from drawing their maintenance directly from the cultiva- 
tion of the earth. Other and lucrative employments are reserved 
for them. If the slaveholders chiefly engross the soil, let us see 
how you are compensated by the encouragement afforded to 
mechanical skill and industry. 

In 1839 the Secretary of the Treasury reported to Congress, 
that the tonnage of vessels built in the United States was 120,988 
Built in the slave States and Territories 23,600 

Or less than one-fifth of the whole ! But the difference is still 
more striking, when we take into consideration the comparative 
value of the shipping built in the two regions: 

In the free States the value is $6,311,805 

In the slave do. 704,291* 



See Amer-ican Almanac for 1843, page 153. 



15 

It would be tedious and unprofitable to compare tbe results of 
the different branches of manufacture carried on at the North 
and the South. It is sufficient to state that, according to the 
census, the value of the manufactures 

In the free States are $334,139,690 

In the slave States 83,935,742 

Having already compared Ohio and Kentucky in reference to 
population and education, we will pursue the comparison as to 
agricultural and mechanical industry. On account of contiguity, 
and similarity of extent, soil and climate, no two States can per- 
haps be so aptly contrasted for the purpose of illustrating the 
influence of slavery. It should also be borne in mind that Ken- 
tucky can scarcely be called a cotton State, having in 1840 
raised only 607,456 lbs. of that article. Hence the deficiency of 
agriculture and other products in Kentucky arises, not from a 
peculiar species of cultivation, but solely from the withering effects 
of slavery. 

Ohio. Kentucky. 

Wool > 3,685,315 lbs. 1,786,842 

Wheat, 16,571,661 bushels 4,803,152 

Ha y> 1,022,037 tons 88,306 

Fulling mills, 205 5 

Printing-offices, 159 34 

Tanneries, 862 387 
Commercial houses ] 

in foreign trade, j 5 

Value of machinery ) * \ 

manufactured, | $ 8 ^,731 $46,074 

In one species of manufacture the South apparently excels the 
North, but unquestionably it is in appearance only. Of 9657 dis- 
tilleries in the United States, no less than 7665 were found in the 
slave States and Territories; but for want of skill and capital 
these yield 1992 gallons less than the other. 

Where there is so much ignorance and idleness, we may well 
suppose that the inventive faculties will be but little exercised ; 
and accordingly we find that of the 545 patents granted for new 
inventions in 1846, only 80 were received by the citizens of the 
slave States. We have thus offered to our readers the tes- 
timony of figures, as to the different state of society under freedom 
and slavery; suffer us now to present you pictures of the two 
regions, drawn not by abolitionists, but by Southern artists, in 
unguarded hours. Mr. Clowney, of South Carolina, thus por- 
trayed his native State, in the ardor of debate on the floor of 
Congress : 



16 



" Look at South Carolina now, with her houses deserted and 
fallino- to decay ; her once fruitful fields worn out and abandoned 
for want of timely improvement or skilful cultivation; and her 
thousands of acres of inexhaustible lands, still promising an abun- 
dant harvest to the industrious husbandman, lying idle and ne- 
glected In the interior of the State where I was born, and 
where I now live, although a country possessing all the advan- 
tages of soil, climate and health, abounding in arable land, unre- 
claimed from the first rude state of nature, there can now be 
found many neighborhoods where the population is too sparse to 
support a common elementary school for children. Such is the 
deplorable condition of one of the oldest members of this Union, 
that dates back its settlement more than a century and a half, 
while other States, born as it were but yesterday, already sur- 
pass what Carolina is or ever has been, in the happiest and 
proudest day of her prosperity." 

This gentleman chose to attribute the decline of South Caro- 
lina to the tariff; rather than to the obvious cause, that one-half 
of the people of South Carolina are poor, ignorant, degraded 
slaves, and the other half suffering in all their faculties and ener- 
gies, from a moral pestilence which they insanely regard as a 
blessing and not a curse. Surely it is not owing to the tariff that 
this ancient member of the Union has 20,615 white citizens 
over twenty years of age who do not know their letters ; while 
Maine, with double her population, has only 3,241. 

Now look upon a very different picture. Mr. Preston, of bouth 
Carolina, not long since delivered a speech at Columbia m refer- 
ence to a proposed rail-road. In this speech, in order to stimu- 
late the efforts of the friends of the road, he indulged m the 
following strain : 

"No Southern man can journey (as he had lately done) 
through the Northern States, and witness the prosperity, the 
industry, the public spirit which they exhibit— the sedulous cul- 
tivation of all those arts by which life is rendered comfortable 
and respectable— without feelings of deep sadness and shame as 
he remembers his oivn neglected and desolate home. There, no 
dwelling is to be seen abandoned— not a farm uncultivated. 
Every person and every thing performs a part towards the grand 
result ; and the whole land is covered with fertile fields, with 
manufactories, and canals, and rail-roads, and edifices, and towns, 
and cities. We of the South are mistaken in the character of 
these people, when we think of them only as pedlars in horn flints 
and bark nutmegs. Their energy and enterprise are directed to 
*li objects great and small within their reach. The number of 



rail-roads and other modes of expeditious intercommunication knft 
the whole country into a closely compacted mass, through which 
the productions of commerce and of the press, the comforts of 
life, and the means of knowledge, are universally diffused ; while 
the close intercourse of travel and of business makes all neigh- 
bors, and promotes a common interest and a common sympathy. 
How different the condition of these things in the South ! Here 
the face of the country wears the aspect of premature old age 
and decay. No improvement is seen going on, nothing is done 
for posterity. No man thinks of anything beyond the present 
moment." 

Yet this same Mr. Preston, thus sensitively alive to the supe- 
perior happiness and prosperity of the free States, declared in 
the United States Senate, " Let an abolitionist come within the 
borders of South Carolina, if we can catch him we will try him, 
and notwithstanding all the interference of all the governments of 
the earth, including the Federal Government, we will hang 
him."* In other words, the slaveholders, rather than part with 
their slaves, are ready to murder, with all the formalities of law, 
the very men who are laboring to confer on them the envied 
blessings of the North. 

IV. FEELINGS OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS TOWARDS 
THE LABORING CLASSES. 

Whenever the great mass of the laboring population of a 
country are reduced to beasts of burden, and toil under the lash, 
" bodily labor," as Chancellor Harper expresses it, must be dis- 
reputable, from the mere influence of association. Hence it is 
that white laborers at the South are styled " mean whites." At 
the North, on the contrary, labor is regarded as the proper and 
commendable means of acquiring wealth ; and our most influential 
men would in no degree suffer in, public estimation, for holding 
the plough, or even repairing the highways. Hence no poor man 
is deterred from seeking a livelihood by honest labor from a dread 
of personal degradation. The different light hi which labor is 
viewed at the North and the South is one cause of the depression 
of industry in the latter. 

Another cause is the ever- wakeful jealousy of the aristocracy. 
They fear the people ; they are alarmed at the very idea of 
power and influence being possessed by any portion of the com- 



* We are well aware that Mr. Preston has denied, what no one_ as- 
serted, that he had said an abolitionist, if he came into South Carolina, 
would be executed by Lynch law. He used the words we have quoted 
(See "New York Journal of Commerce," Jan. 6th, 1838). 



18 

munity not directly interested in slave property. Visions of 
emancipation, of agrarianism, and of popular resistance to their 
authority, are ever floating in their distempered and excited ima- 
ginations. They know their own weakness, and are afraid you 
should know it also. Hence it is their policy to keep down the 
" mean whites." Hence their philippics against the lower classes. 
Hence their constant comparison of the laborers of the North, 
with their own slaves ; and hence, in no small degree, the absence 
amongthemof those institutions which confer upon the poor that 
knowledge which is power. Do you deem these assertions un- 
charitable ? Listen to their own declarations : 

" We believe the servitude which prevails in the South far 
preferable to that of the North, or in Europe. Slavery will exist 
in all communities. There is a class which may be nominally 
free, but they will be virtually Slaves."— Mississijopian, July 6th, 
1838. 

" Those who depend on their daily labor for their daily sub- 
sistence can never enter into political affairs ; they never do, never 
will, never can." — B. W. Leigh in Virginia Convention, 1829. 

" All society settles down into a classification of capitalists and 
laborers. The former will own the latter, either collectively 
through the government, or individually in a state of domestic 
servitude, as exists in the Southern States of this confederacy. If 
laborers ever obtain the political power of a country, it is in 
fact in a state of revolution. The capitalists north of Mason and 
Dixon's line, have precisely the same interest in the labor of the 
country, that the capitalists of England ha-\e in their labor. 
Hence it is that they must have a strong federal government (!) 
to control the labor of the nation. But it is precisely the reverse 
with us. We have already not only a right to the proceeds of 
our laborers, but we own a class of laborers themselves. But let 
me say to gentlemen who represent the great class of capitalists 
in the North — beware that you do not drive us into a separate 
system ; for if you do, as certain as the decrees of heaven, you 
will be compelled to appeal to the sword to maintain yourselves 
at home. It may not come in your day ; but your children's 
children will be covered with the blood of domestic factions, and 
will see a plundering mob contending for power and conquest." — 
Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, in Congress, 21st Jan., 183G. 

So the way to prevent plundering mobs, is to enslave the 
poor ! We shall see presently, how far this expedient has been 
successful in preventing murdering mobs. 

" In the very nature of things there must be classes of persona 



10 

to discharge all the different offices of society, from the highest 
to the lowest. Some of these offices are regarded as degrading, 
although they must and will be performed. Hence those mani- 
fest forms of dependent servitude which produce a sense of supe- 
riority in the masters or employers, and of inferiority on the part 
of the servants. Where these offices are performed by members 
of the political community, a dangerous element is obviously 
introduced into the body politic. Hence the alarming tendency 
to violate the rights of property by agrarian legislation, which is 
beginning to be manifest in the older States, where universal suf- 
frage prevails without domestic slavery. 

" In a word, the institution of domestic slavery supersedes the 
necessity of an order of nobility, and all the other apfex- 

DAGES OF A HEREDITARY SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT." Governor 

M' Duffies Message to the South Carolina Legislature, 1836. 

"We regard slavery as the most safe and stable basis for free 
institutions in the world. It is impossible with us, that the con- 
flict can take place between labor and capital, which makes it so 
difficult to establish and maintain free institutions in all wealthy 
and highly civilized nations where such institutions do not exist. 
Every plantation is a little community with the master at its 
head, who concentrates in himself the united interests of capital 
and labor, of which he is the common representative." — (Mr. Cal- 
houn, of South Carolina, in the U. S. Senate, Jan. 10th, 1840.) 

" We of the South have cause now, and shall soon have great- 
er, to congratulate ourselves on the existence of a population 
among us, which excludes the Populace which in effect rules 
some of our Northern neighbors, and is rapidly gaining strength 
wherever slavery does not exist — a populace made up of the 
dregs of Europe, and the most worthless portion of the native 
population." — [Richmond Whig, 1837.) 

" Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox by giving him 
a cultivated understanding, a fine feeling ? So far as the mere 
laborer has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspiration of a free- 
man, he is unfitted for his situation. If there are sordid, servile, 
laborious offices to be performed, is it not better that there should 
be sordid, servile, laborious beings to perform them ? 

" Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its 
forbidding the elements of education being communicated to 
slaves. But in truth what injury is done them by this ? He who 
works during the day with his hands, does not read in the inter- 
vals of leisure for his amusement, or the improvement of his 
mind, or the exception is so very rare as scarcely to need the be- 
ing provided for." — (Chancellor Harper of South Carolina.— 
Southern Literary Messenger.) 



20 

This same gentleman delivered an oration on the 4th of July, 
1840, reviewing the principles of the two great political parties, 
and although he supported Mr. Van Buren's administration, in 
consideration of its devotion to the slave interest, he frankly in- 
quires : — 

" Is there anything in the principles and opinions of the 
great democratic rabble, as it has been justly called, which 
should induce us to identify ourselves with that ? Here you 
may find every possible grade and hue of opinion which has 
ever existed in the country. Here you may find loafer, and loco 
foco, and agrarian, and all the rabble of the city of New York, 
the most corrupt and depraved of rabbles, and which controls, in 
a great degree, the city itself, and through that, as being the 
commercial metropolis, exercises much influence over the State 
at large. 

" What are the essential principles of democracy as distinguish- 
ed from republicanism ? The first consists in the dogma, so 
portentous to us, of the natural equality and unalienable right to 
liberty of every human being. Our allies (!) no doubt, are will- 
ing 1 at present to modify the doctrine in our favor. But ^he spirit 
of democracy at large makes no such exceptions, nor will these 
(our allies, the Northern democrats) continue to make it, longer 
than necessity or interest may require. The second consists in 
the doctrine of the divine right of majorities ; a doctrine not less 
false, and slavish, and absurd, than the ancient doctrine of the di- 
vine right of kings." 

Mr. Robert Wickliffe, of Kentucky, in a speech published in 
the Louisville Advertiser, in opposition to those who were adverse 
to the importation of slaves from the Sta/tes, thus discourseth : 

" Gentlemen wanted to drive out the black population, that 
they may obtain white negroes in their place. White negroes 
have this advantage over black negroes, they can be converted 
into voters ; and the men who live upon the sweat of their brow, 
and pay them but a dependent and scanty subsistence, can, if able 
to keep ten thousand of them in employment, come up to the 
polls and change the destiny of the country. 

" How improved will be our condition when we have such 
white negroes as perform the servile labors of Europe, of Old 
England, and he would add now of JVeio England ; when our 
body servants and our cart drivers and our street sweepers are 
white negroes instead of black. Where will be the independence, 
the proud spirit, and the chivalry of Kcntuckians then ?" 

Had the gentleman looked across the river, he might have 



21 

found an answer to his question, in the wealth, power, intelligence 
and happiness of Ohio. 

In reading the foregoing extracts, it is amusing to observe how 
adroitly the slaveholders avoid all recognition of any other classes 
among them than masters and slaves. Who would suspect from 
their language, that they were themselves, a small minority of the 
white inhabitants, and that their own "white negroes " could, if 
united and so disposed, outvote them at the polls ? It is worthy 
of remark that in their denunciations of the -populace, the rabble, 
those who ivork with their hands, they refer not to complexion, but 
to condition ; not to slaves, but to the poor and laborious of their 
own color. 

Slavery, although considered by Mr. Calhoun " the most stable 
basis of free institutions in the world," has, as we shall presently 
show you, in fact, led to grosser outrages in the social compact, to 
more alarming violations of constitutional liberty, to more bold 
and reckless assaults upon " free institutions," than have ever 
been even attempted by the much-dreaded agrarianism of the 
North. 

V. STATE OF RELIGION. 

The deplorable ignorance and want of industry at the South, 
together with the disrepute in which honest industry is held, can- 
not but exercise, in connection with other causes, a most unhap- 
py influence on the morals of the inhabitants. There are be- 
tween two and three millions of slaves, who are kept by law in 
brutal ignorance, and who, with few exceptions, are virtually 
heathens.* 

There are also among them more than 200,000 free negroes, 
thus described by Mr. Clay : — " Contaminated themselves, they 
extend their vices to all around them."f 

If evil communications corrupt good manners, the intimate in- 
tercourse of the whites with these people must be depraving : nor 
can the exercise of despotic power by the masters, their wives 

* " From long continued and close observation, we believe that their 
(the slaves') moral and religious condition is such that they may justly 
be considered the Heathen of this Christian country, and will bear 
comparison with heathen in any country in the world. The negroes 
are destitute of the Gospel, and ever will be binder the present state of 
things." — Report published by the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, 
Dec. 3, 1833. 

t Speech before the Amerirqn Colonization Society. 



92 

ring that there are numerous and honorable exceptions. For 
oeral truth of our assertion, we appeal to the authorities 
and the facte we have already laid before you, and to those we 
arc about t" offer. 

\ a have already seen that the pro-slavery press has recom- 
mended the murder of such northern abolitionists as may be 
caught in the South ; we now ask vour attention to the efforts made 
by the slaveholders to get prominent abolitionists into their power. 

In 1831, a citizen of Massachusetts established a newspaper 
at Beaton, called the Liberator, and devoted to the cause of negro 
emancipation. The undertaking was perfectly legal, and he him- 
Belf, having never been in Georgia, had of course violated none 
of her laws. The legislature, however, forthwith passed a law, 
offering a bribe of $5000 to any person who would arrest and 
and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, the editor and pub- 
lisher of the Boston paper. This most atrocious law was " ap- 
proved" on the 26th Dec, 1831, by William Lumpkin, the 
Governor. The object of the bribe could have been no other 
than the' abduction and murder of the conductor of the paper — 
his trial and conviction under Georgia laws being a mere pretence : 
the Georgia courts have as much jurisdiction over the Press in 
Pari- as in Boston. A Lynch court was the only one that could 
have taken cognizance of the offence, and its proceedings would 
undoubtedly have been both summary and sanguinary. 

The horrible example thus set by the Georgia Legislature was 
DOt without its followers. 

At a meeting of slaveholders at Sterling, Sept. 4, 1835, it was 
formally recommended to the Governor to issue a proclamation, 
offering the 16000 appropriated by the Act of 1831, as a reward 
for the apprehension of cither of ten persons named in the reso- 
lution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a sub- 
j , • , ' I of (neat Britain; not one of whom it was even pretended 
had ever Bel his foot on the soil of Georgia. 

The Mi/lctlficville \Ga.] Federal Union, of Feb. 1, 183G, con- 
tained an offer of 110,000 for kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a cler- 
gyman residing in the city of New York. 

The Committee of Vigilance of the Parish of East Feliciana, 
"1 in the Louisiana Journal of 15th Oct., 1835, #50,000 to 
any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a 
York merchant. 

At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, Alabama, 
13th August, 1836, the Honorable [!] Bedford Ginress in the 
ohair, b reward of $50,000 was offered for the apprehension of 
Arthur Tappan, or Le Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the 
M"thodist Church residing in New York. 



33 

Let us now witness the practical operation of that murderous 
spirit which dictated the foregoing villainous bribes. We have 
already seen the conduct of the slave-holding community to negro 
offenders ; we are now to notice its tender mercies to men of its 
own color. 

In 1835, there was a real or affected apprehension of a 
servile insurrection in the State of Mississippi. The slaveholders, 
as usual on such occasions, were exceedingly frightened, and 
were exceedingly cruel. A pamphlet was afterwards pub- 
lished, entitled " Proceedings of the Citizens of Madison County, 
Miss., at Livingston, in July, 1835, in relation to the trial 
and 'punishment of several individuals implicated in a con- 
templated insurrection in this State. — Prepared by Thomas 
Shuckelford, Esquire. Printed at Jackson, Miss." This pamph- 
let, then, is the Southern account of the affair ; and while it is 
more minute in its details than the narratives published in the 
newspapers at the time, Ave are not aware that it contradicts 
them. It may be regarded as a sort of semi-official report put 
forth by the slaveholders, and published under their implied sanc- 
tion. It appears, from this account, that in -consequence of " ru- 
mors" that the slaves meditated an insurrection — that a colored 
girl had been heard to say that " she was tired of waiting on the 
white folks — wanted to be her own mistress for the balance of 
her days, and clean up her own house, &c," a meeting was held 
at which resolutions were signed, organizing a committee, and 
authorizing them "to bring before them any person or persons, 
either ivhite or black, and try in a summary manner any person 
brought before them, with power to hang or whip, being always 
governed by the laivs of the land, so far only as they shall be ap- 
plicable to the case in question ; otherwise to act as in their discretion 
shall seem best for the benefit of the country and the protection of 
its citizens." 

This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commis- 
sioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, ex- 
pressly authorized to act independently of " the laws of the land." 
The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt 
many of the honorable Judges of the Court had on other occa- 
sions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause : — 
" No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in 
cases ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the 
same has prescribed ; aud no person shall be punished, but in vir- 
tue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, 
and legally applied." 

Previous to the organization of this Court, five slaves had al- 
ready been hung by the people. The Court, or rather, as it was 

2* 



24 

sible of violating any principle of courtesy or delicacy ; we touch 
not their private character or their private acts ; we refer to their 
language and sentiments, merely as one indication of the standard 
of morals among their constituents, not as conclusive proof apart 
from other evidence. 

On the 15th February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned 
before the House of Representatives for contempt in refusing to 
attend when required before a Committee. His apology was that 
he was afraid of his life, and he called, as a witness in his behalf, 
one of the Committee, Mr. Fairfield, since Governor of the State 
of Maine. It appeared that in the Committee, Mr. Peyton of 
Virginia had put some interrogatory to Whitney, who had re- 
turned a written answer which was deemed offensive. On this, 
as Mr. Fairfield testified, Peyton addressed the Chairman in these 
terms, " Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this witness, that he 
is not to insult me in his answers : if he does, God damn him ! I 
will take his life on the spot !" Whitney rose and said he claimed 
the protection of the Committee, on which Peyton exclaimed, 
" God damn you, you shan't speak, you shan't say one word 
while you are in this room, if you do I will put you to death !" 
Soon after, Peyton observing that Whitney was looking at him, 
cried out, " Damn him, his eyes are on me — God damn him, he is 
looking at me — he shan't do it — damn him, he shan't look at me !" 

The newspaper reports of the proceedings of Congress, a 
few years since, informed us that Mr. Dawson, a member from 
Louisiana, went up to Mr. Arnold, another member, and said 
to him, "If you attempt to speak, or rise from your seat, sir, 
by God I'll cut your throat !" 

In a debate on the Florida war, Mr. Cooper having taken of- 
fence at Mr. Giddings of Ohio, for some remarks relative to 
slavery, said in his reply, " If the gentleman from Ohio will come 
among my constituents and promulgate his doctrines there, he will 
find that Lynch law will be inflicted, and that the gentleman will 
reach an elevation Which belittle dreams of." 

In the session of 1841, Mr. Payne, of Alabama, in debate, 
alluding to the abolitionists, among whom he insisted the Post- 
master-General ought to be included, declared that he would pro- 
scribe all abolitionists, he " would put the brand of Cain upon 
them — yes, the mark of Hell, and if they came to the South he 

WOuld HANG THEM LIKE DOGS !" 

Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, at an earlier period thus 
expressed himself in the House : "I warn the abolitionists, 
ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall 
throw any of them into our hands, they may expect a felon's 
death !" 



25 

In 1848, Mr. Hale, a Senator from New Hampshire, introduced 
a bill for the protection of property in the District of Columbia, 
attempts having been made to destroy an anti-Slavery press. Mr. 
Foote, a Senator from Mississippi, thus expressed himself in 
reply: "I invite him (Mr. H.) to the State of Mississippi, and 
will tell him before-hand, in all honesty, that he could not go ten 
miles into the interior, before he would grace one of the tallest 
trees of the forest, with a rope around his neck, with the appro- 
bation of every virtuous and patriotic citizen, and that, if neces- 
sary, I SHOULD MYSELF ASSIST IN THE OPERATION." 

And now, do these honorable gentlemen with all their profanity 
and vulgarity, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, represent 
the feelings, and manners, and morals of the slaveholding com- 
munity ? We have seen no evidence that they have lost a parti- 
cle of popular favor in consequence of their ferocious violence. 
Alas ! their language has been re-echoed again and again by pub- 
lic meetings in the slave States ; and we proceed to lay before 
you overwhelming proof that in the expression of their murder- 
ous feelings towards the abolitionists, they have faithfully repre- 
sented the sentiments of their constituents. 

VII. DISREGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE. 

We have already seen that one of the blessings which the 
slaveholders attribute to their favorite institution, is exemption 
from popular tumults, and from encroachments by the democracy 
upon the rights of property. Their argument is, that political 
power in the hands of the poor and laboring classes is always attend- 
ed with danger, and that this danger is averted when these classes 
are kept in bondage. With these gentlemen, life and liberty seem 
to be accounted as the small dust of the balance, when weighed 
against slavery and plantations ; hence, to preserve the latter 
they are ever ready to sacrifice the former, in utter defiance of 
laws and constitutions. ^ 

We have already noticed the murderous proposition in relation 
to abolitionists, made by Governor M'Duffie to the South Carolina 
Legislature in 1835 : " It is my deliberate opinion that the /a?w 
of 'every community should punish this species of interference, 
by death without benefit of clergy." In an address to a legis- 
lative assembly, Governor M'Duffie refrained from the indecency 
of recommending illegal murder ; but we will soon find that the 
public sentiment of the South by no means requires that aboli- 
tionists shall be put to death with legal formalities ; but on the 
contrary, the slaveholders are ready, in the language of Mr. Payne, 
to " hang them like dogs." 



26 

We hazard little in the assertion, that in no civilized Christian 
community on earth is human life less protected by law, or more 
frequently taken with impunity, than in the slave States of the 
Federal Union. We wish to impress upon you the danger and 
corruption to which you and your children are exposed from the 
institution, which, as we have shown you, exists by your suffer- 
ance. But you have been taught to respect this institution ; 
and hence it becomes necessary to enter into details, however 
painful, and to present you with authorities which you cannot re- 
ject. What we have just said of the insecurity of human life, 
will probably be deemed by you and others as abolition slander. 
Listen, then, to slaveholders themselves. 

" We long to see the day," said the Governor of Kentucky in 
his message to the Legislature, 1837, "when the law will assert 
its majesty, and stop the wanton destruction of life which almost 
daily occurs within the jurisdiction of this commonwealth. Men 

SLAUGHTER EACH OTHER WITH ALMOST PERFECT IMPUNITY. A 

species of common law has grown up in Kentucky, which, were it 
written down, would, in all civilized countries, cause her to be 
re-christened, in derision, the land of blood." 

The present Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky* a 
few years since, published an article on the murders in that State. 
He states that some with whom he had conversed, estimated 
them at 80 per annum ; but that he had rated them at about 
30 ; and that he had ascertained that for the last three years, 
there had not been " an instance of capital punishment in any 
white offender." "It is believed," says he, " there are more 
homicides on an average of two years in any of our more popu- 
lous counties, than in the whole of several of our States of equal, 
or nearly equal, population to Kentucky."' 

Governor McVay, of Alabama, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture, November 15, 1S37, thus speaks, "We hear of homicides 
in different parts of the State continually, and yet have few con- 
victions and still fewer executions ! Why do we hear of stab- 
bings and shootings almost daily in some part or other of our 
State ?" 

" Death by Violence. — The moral atmosphere in our State 
appears to be in a deleterious and sanguinary condition. Almost 
every exchange paper which reaches us, contains some inhuman 
and revolting case of murder, or death by violence. JVot less than 
fifteen deaths by violence have occurred, to our certain know- 
ledge, within the past three months." — Grand Gulf Miss. Ad- 
vertiser, 21th June, 1837. 

* It is believed this gentleman is not a slaveholder 



27 

Contempt of Human Life. — In view of the crimes which are 
daily committed, we are led to inquire whether it is owing to the 

inefficiencv of our laws, or to the manner in which these laws are 
administered, that this frightful deluge of human blood 

FLOWS THROUGH OUR STREETS AND OUR PLACES OF PUBLIC RESORT. 

— ' New Orleans Bee, 23d May, 1838. 

At the opening of the Criminal Court in New Orleans, Novem- 
ber 4th, 1837, Judge Lansuque delivered an address, in which, 
speaking of the prevalence of violence, he used the following lan- 
guage : 

"As a Louisiana parent, I reflect with terror, that our be- 
loved children, reared to become one day honorable and useful 
citizens, may be the victims of these votaries of vice and licen- 
tiousness. Without some powerful and certain remedy, our 
streets will become butcheries, overflowing with the blood cf 
our citizens !■" 

While the slaveholders are terrified at the idea of the " great 
democratic rabble," and rejoice in human bondage as superseding 
the necessity of " an order of nobility, and all the appendages of 
a hereditary government," they have established a reign of terror, 
as insurrectionary and as sanguinary in principle, as that created 
by the sans culottes of the French revolution. We indulge in no 
idle declamation, but speak the words of truth and soberness. 

A public meeting, convened in the church ! ! in the town of 
Clinton, Mississippi, 5th September, 1835 — 

Resolved, " That it is our decided opinion, that any individual 
who dares to circulate, with a view to effectuate the designs of 
the abolitionists, any of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now 
in the course of transmission to this country, is justly worthy, in 
the sight of God and man, of immediate death ; and we doubt 
not that such would be the punishment of any such offender, in 
any part of the State of Mississippi where he may be found." 

It would be tedious to copy the numerous resolutions of similar 
import, passed by public meetings in almost every slave State. 
It is well known that the promoters of those lawless and san- 
guinary proceedings, did not belong to the "rabble" — they 
were not " mean whites," but rich, influential slaveholders. A 
meeting was held in 1835 at Williamsburgh, Virginia, which was 
harangued by no less a personage than John Tyler, once 
Governor of the State, and since President of the United States : 
under this gentleman's auspices, and after his address, the meet- 
ing resolved — 



2S 

" That we regard the printing and circulating within our limits, of 
incendiary publications, tending to excite our slaves to insurrection 
and rebellion, as treasonable acts of the most alarming character, 
and that when we detect offenders in the act, we will inflict 
upon them condign punishment, without resorting to any other 
tribunal." 

The profligacy of this resolution needs no comment. Mr. Ty- 
ler well knew that the laws of Virginia, and every other State 
were abundantly sufficient to punish crime : but he and his fellow 
lynchers wished to deter the people from receiving and reading 
anything adverse to slavery ; and hence, with their usual audaci- 
ty, they determined to usurp the prerogative of courts and juries, 
and throw down all the bulwarks which the law has erected for 
the protection of innocence. 

Newspapers are regarded as the mirrors of public opinion. 
Let us see what opinions are reflected in those of the South. 

The Charleston Courier, 11th August, 1835, declared that 
" the gallows and the stake " awaited the abolitionists who should 
dare to "appear in person among us." 

" The cry of the whole South should be death, instant death 
to the abolitionist, wherever he is caught." — Augusta (Geo.) 
Chronicle. 

" Let us declare through the public journals of our country, 
that the question of slavery is not and shall not be open to dis- 
cussion ; that the system is too deep-rooted among us, and must 
remain for ever ; that the very moment any private individual at- 
tempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the neces- 
sity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in the 
same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the 
dunghill." — Columbia (S.C.) Telescope. 

This, it will be noticed, is a threat addressed, not to the Northern 
abolitionists, but to the great majority of the white inhabitants of 
the South ; and they are warned not to express an opinion offen- 
sive to the aristocracy. 

"Awful but Just Punishment. — We learn, by the arrival of 
the steamboat Kentucky last evening from Richmond, that Robin- 
son, the Englishman mentioned in the Beacon of Saturday, as be- 
ing in the vicinity of Lynchburg, was taken about fifteen miles 
from that (own, and hanged on the spot, for exciting the slaves 
to insurrection." — Norfolk (Va.) Beacon, 10th August, 1835. 

" We can assure the Bostonians, one and all, who have em- 
barked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, 



29 

that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. 
Let them send out their men to Louisiana ; they will never return 
to tell their sufferings, but they shall expiate the crime of inter- 
fering with our domestic institutions, by being burned at the 
stake." — New- Orleans True American. 

" Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their 
opinions. It would be instant death to them." — Missouri Argus. 

Here, again, is a threat directed against any person, who may 
happen to have the command of types and printer's ink. 

Now, we ask what must be the state of society, where the 
public journals thus justify and stimulate the public thirst for 
blood ? The very idea of trial is scouted, and the mob, or rather 
the slaveholders themselves, are acknowledged to be the arbiters 
of life and death. The question we put to you as to the state of 
society, has been already answered by the official declarations of 
the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and of Judge Lansu- 
que, of New Orleans ; as well as by the extracts we have given 
you from some of the southern journals, relative to the frequency 
of murders among them. We could farther answer it, by filling 
sheets with accounts of fearful atrocities. But we purposely re- 
frain from referring to assassinations and private crimes ; for such, 
as already remarked, occur in a greater or less degree in every 
community, and do not necessarily form a test of the standard 
of morals. But we ask your attention to a test which cannot be 
questioned. We will present for your consideration a series of 
atrocities, perpetrated, not by individuals in secret, but in open 
day by the slaveholding populace. 

We have seen that two of the Southern papers we have quoted, 
threaten abolitionists with the stake. This awful and horrible 
punishment has been banished, by the progress of civilization, 
from the whole of Christendom, with the single exception of the 
American Slave States. It is scarcely necessary to say, that 
even in them, it is unknown to the laws, although familiar to the 
people. It is also deserving of remark, that the two journals 
which have made this atrocious threat were published, not among 
the rude borderers of our frontier settlements, but in the popu- 
lous cities of Charleston and New-Orleans, the very centres of 
Southern refinement. 

"Tuscaloosa (Alab.) June 20,1827. The negro [one who 
had killed a Mr. M'Neilly] was taken before a Justice of the 
Peace, who waived his authority, perhaps through fear, as a 
crowd of persons had collected, to the number of seventy or 
eighty, near Mr. People's [the Justice] house. He acted as Pre- 



30 

sident of the mo}), and put the vote, when it was decided that he 
should be immediately executed by being burned to death. The 
sable culprit was led to a tree and tied to it, and a large quantity 
of pine knots collected and placed around him, and the fatal torch 
applied to the pile, even against the remonstrances of several 
gentlemen who were present, and the miserable being was in a 
short time burned to ashes. This is the second negro who has been 
thus put to death, without judge or jury in this country." 

On the 28th of April, 1836, a free negro was arrested in St. 
Louis (Missouri) and committed to jail on a charge of murder. 
A mob assembled and demanded him of the jailor, who surren- 
dered him. The negro was then chained to a tree a short dis- 
tance from the Court House, and burned to death. 

" After the flames had surrounded their prey, and when his 
clothes were in a blaze all over him, his eyes burnt out of his 
head, and his mouth seemingly parched to a cinder, some one in 
the crowd, more compassionate than the rest, proposed to put an 
end to his misery by shooting him, when it was replied that it 
would be of no use, since he was already out of his pain. ' No,' 
said the wretch, ' I am not, I am suffering as much as ever ; shoot 
me, shoot me.' ' No, no,' said one of the fiends who was stand- 
ing about the sacrifice they were roasting, ' he shall not be shot, 
I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery ;' 
and the man who said this was, we understand, an officer of jus- 
tice." — Alton Telegraph. 

" We have been Wormed that the slave William, who murdered 
his master (Huskey) some weeks since, was taken by a party a 
few days since from the Sheriff oi Hot Spring, and burned alive! 
yes, tied up to the limb of a tree and a fire built under him, and 
consumed in a slow lingering torture." — Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 
29. 1836. 

The Natchez Free Trader, 16th June, 1842, gives a horrible 
account of the execution of the negro, Joseph, on the 5th of that 
month for murder. 

" The body," says that paper, " was taken and chained to a tree 
immediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called 
Union Point. The torches were lighted and placed in the pile. 
He watched unmoved the curling ilame as it grew, until it began 
to entwine rteelf around and feed upon his body ; then he sent 
forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow 
his brains out ; at the same time surging with almost superhuman 
strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to 
the tree, not being well secured, drew out, and he leaped from 



31 

the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ring of several 
rifles was heard, and the body of the negro fell a corpse to the 
ground. He was picked up by two or three, and again thrown 
into the fire and consumed." 

"Another Negro Burned. — We learn from the clerk of the 
Highlander that, while wooding a short distance below the mouth 
of Red river, they were invited to stop a short time and see ano- 
ther negro burned"— N. 0. Bulletin. 

Thus we see that burning negroes alive is treated as a specta- 
cle, and strangers .are invited to witness it. The victim of this 
exhibition was the negro Enoch, said to have been an accomplice 
of Joseph, and was burned a few r days after the other. 

We have thus given you no less than six instances of human 
beings publicly burned alive in four slave States, and in each case 
with entire impunity to the miscreants engaged in the horrible 
murder. But these were cases which happened to be reported in 
the newspapers, and with which we happened to become ac- 
quainted. There is reason to believe that these executions are 
not of rare occurrence, and that many of them, either through 
indifference or policy, are not noticed in the Southern papers. 

A recent traveller remarks, " Just before I reached Mobile, two 
men were burned alive there in a slow fire in the open air, in the 
presence of the gentlemen of the city. No word was breathed of 
the transaction in the newspapers. " -Martineaii s Society in 
America, vol. i., p. 373. 

But the murderous spirit deplored by the Governors of Ken- 
tucky and Alabama, and the " frightful deluge of human blood" 
complained of by the New Orleans editor, had no reference to the 
murder of negroes. Men who can enjoy the sight of negroes 
writhing in flames, and are permitted by the civil authorities to 
indulge in such exhibitions, will not be very scrupulous in taking 
the lives of each other. It is well known how incessantly the 
work of human slaughter is going on among them; and no reader 
of their public journals can be ignorant of the frequent occurrence 
of their deadly street fights. But, for the reason already given, 
we meddle not with these. We charge the slaveholding commu- 
nity, as such, with sanctioning murder, and protecting the perpe- 
trators, and setting the laws at defiance. This we know is a 
grievous charge, and most grievous the proof of it. But mistake 
not our meaning. God forbid we should deny that many of the 
community to which we refer, utterly abhor the atrocities we arc 
about to detail. We speak of the murderous feelings of the 
slaveholding community, just as we speak of the politics, the 
manners, and the morals of any other community, freely acknow- 



32 

ledging that there are numerous and honorable exceptions. For 
the general truth of our assertion, we appeal to the authorities 
and the facts we have already laid before you, and to those we 
are about to offer. 

You have already seen that the pro-slavery press has recom- 
mended the murder of such northern abolitionists as may be 
caught in the South ; we now ask your attention to the efforts made 
by the slaveholders to get prominent abolitionists into their power. 

In 1831, a citizen of Massachusetts established a newspaper 
at Boston, called the Liberator, and devoted to the cause of negro 
emancipation. The undertaking was perfectly legal, and he him- 
self, having never been in Georgia, had of course violated none 
of her laws. The legislature, however, forthwith passed a law, 
offering a bribe of $5000 to any person who would arrest and 
and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, the editor and pub- 
lisher of the Boston paper. This most atrocious law was " ap- 
proved" on the 26th Dec, 1831, by William Lumpkin, the 
Governor. The object of the bribe could have been no other 
than the abduction and murder of the conductor of the paper — 
his trial and conviction under Georgia laws being a mere pretence : 
the Georgia courts have as much jurisdiction over the Press in 
Paris as in Boston. A Lynch court was the only one that could 
have taken cognizance of the offence, and its proceedings would 
undoubtedly have been both summary and sanguinary. 

The horrible example thus set by the Georgia Legislature was 
not without its followers. 

At a meeting of slaveholders at Sterling, Sept. 4, 1835, it was 
formally recommended to the Governor to issue a proclamation, 
offering the $5000 appropriated by the Act of 1831, as a reward 
for the apprehension of either of ten persons named in the reso- 
lution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a sub- 
ject of Great Britain ; not one of whom it was even pretended 
had ever set his foot on the soil of Georgia. 

The Milledgeville [Ga.] Federal Union, of Feb. 1, 1836, con- 
tained an offer of $10,000 for kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a cler- 
gyman residing in the city of New York. 

The Committee of Vigilance of the Parish of East Feliciana, 
offered in the Louisiana Journal of 15th Oct., 1835, $50,000 to 
any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a 
New York merchant. 

At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, Alabama, 
13th August, 1836, the Honorable [!] Bedford Ginress in the 
chair, a reward of $50,000 was offered for the apprehension of 
Arthur Tappan, or Le Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the 
Methodist Church residing in New York. 



33 

Let us now witness the practical operation of that murderous 
spirit which dictated the foregoing villainous bribes. We have 
already seen the conduct of the slave-holding community to neyro 
offenders ; we are now to notice its tender mercies to men of its 
own color. 

In 1835, there was a real or affected apprehension of a 
servile insurrection in the State of Mississippi. The slaveholders, 
as usual on such occasions, were exceedingly frightened, and 
were exceedingly cruel. A pamphlet was afterwards pub- 
lished, entitled " Proceedings of the Citizens of Madison County, 
Miss., at Livingston, in July, 1835, in relation to the trial 
and punishment of several individuals implicated in a con- 
templated insurrection in this State. — Prepared by Thomas 
Shuckelford, Esquire. Printed at Jackson, Miss." This pamph- 
let, then, is the Southern account of the affair ; and while it is 
more minute in its details than the narratives published in the 
newspapers at the time, we are not aware that it contradicts 
them. It may be regarded as a sort of semi-official report put 
forth by the slaveholders, and published under their implied sanc- 
tion. It appears, from this account, that in consequence of " ru- 
mors" that the slaves meditated an insurrection — that a colored 
girl had been heard to say that " she was tired of waiting on the 
white folks — wanted to be her own mistress for the balance of 
her days, and clean up her own house, &c," a meeting was held 
at which resolutions were signed, organizing a committee, and 
authorizing them " to bring before than any person or persons, 
either white or black, and try in a summary manner any person 
brought before them, with power to hang or whip, being always 
governed by the laws of the land, so far only as they shall be ap- 
plicable to the case in question ; otherwise to act as in their discretion 
shall seem best for the benefit of the country and the protection of 
its citizens." 

This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commis- 
sioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, ex- 
pressly authorized to act independently of " the laws of the land." 
The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt 
many of the honorable Judges of the Court had on other occa- 
sions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause :— - 
'* No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in 
cases ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the 
same has prescribed ; aud no person shall be punished, but in vir- 
tue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, 
and legally applied." 

Previous to the organization of this Court, five slaves had al- 
ready been hung by the people. The Court, or rather, as it was 

2* 



31 

modestly called by the meeting who erected it, " the committee," 
proceeded to try Dr. Joshua Cotton, of New England. It was 
proved to the satisfaction of the committee that he had been de- 
tected in many low tricks — that he was deficient in feeling and af- 
fection for his second wife — that he had traded with negroes — 
that he had asked a negro boy whether the slaves were whipped 
much, how he would like to be free ? &c. It is stated that Cotton 
made a confession that he had been aiming to bring about a con- 
spiracy. The committee condemned him to be hanged in an 

HOUR AFTER SENTENCE. 

William Saunders, a native of Tennessee, was next tried. He 
was convicted " of being often out at night, and giving no satis- 
factory explanation for so doing" — of equivocal conduct — of be- 
ing intimate with Cotton, &c. Whereupon, by a unanimous vote, 
he was found guilty and sentenced to be hung. He was exe- 
cuted with Cotton on the 4th of July. 

Albe Dean, of Connecticut, was next tried. He was convicted 
of being a lazy, indolent man, having very little jwetensions to 
honesty — of " pretending to make a living by constructing wash- 
ing machines" — of " often coming to the owners of runaways, to 
intercede with the masters to save them from a whipping." He 
was sentenced to be hung, and was executed. 

A. L. Dona van, of Kentucky, was then put on his trial. He 
was suspected of having traded with the negroes — of being found 
in their cabins, and enjoying himself in their Society. It was 
proved that " at one time he actually undertook to release a 
negro who was tied, which negro afterwards implicated him," 
and that he once told an overseer " it was cruel work to be 
whipping the poor negroes as he was obliged to do." The com- 
mittee were satisfied, from the evidence before them, that Dona- 
van was an emissary of those deluded fanatics of the North, 
the abolitionists. He was condemned to be hung, and suffered 
accordingly. 

Ruel Blake was next tried, condemned and hung. " He pro- 
tested his innocence to the last, and said his life was sworn 
away." 

Here we have a record of no less than ten men, five black 
and five white, probably all innocent of the crime alleged against 
them, deliberately and publicly put to death by the slaveholders, 
without the shadow of legal authority. 

The Maysville, Ken. Gazette, in announcing Donavan's mur- 
der, says, " he formerly belonged to Maysville, and was a much 
respected citizen." 

A letter from Donavan to his wife, written just before his 
execution, and published in the Maysville paper, says, "I am 



35 

doomed to die to-morrow at 12 o' clock, on a charge of having 
been concerned in a negro insurrection, in this State, among 
many other whites. We are not tried by a regular jury, but 
by a committee of planters appointed for the purpose, who have 

not time to wait on a person for evidence Now I must 

close by saying, before my Maker and Judge, that I go into his 
presence as innocent of this charge as when I was born .... 
I must bid you a final farewell, hoping that the God of the 
widow and the fatherless will give you grace to bear this most 
awful sentence." 

And now, did these butcheries by the Mississippi planters 
excite the indignation of the slaveholding communities ? Receive 
the answer from an editor of the Ancient Dominion, replying to 
the comments of a Northern newspaper. "The Journal may 
depend upon it that the Cottons and the Saunders, men con- 
fessing themselves guilty of inciting and plotting insurrection, 
will be hanged up wherever caught, and that without the forma- 
lity of a legal trial. Northern or Southern, such will be their 
inevitable doom. For our part, we applaud the transaction, and 
none in our opinion can condemn it, who have not a secret sym- 
pathy with the Garrison sect. If Northern sympathy and effort 
are to be cooled and extinguished by such cases, it proves but 
this, that the South ought to feel little confidence in the profes- 
sions it receives from that quarter." — Richmond Whig. 

About the time of the massacre in Clinton County, another 
awful tragedy was performed at Vicksburg in the same State. 
Five men, said to be gamblers, were hanged by the mob on the 
5th July, in open day. 

The Louisiana Advertiser, of 13th July, says, " These unfortu- 
nate men claimed to the last, the privilege of American citizens, the 
trial by Jury, and professed themselves willing to submit to any- 
thing their country would legally inflict upon them : but we , are 
sorry to say, their petition was in vain. The black musicians 
were ordered to strike up, and the voices of the supplicants were 
drowned by the fife and drum. Mr. Riddle, the Cashier of the 
Planters'' Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle. The 
unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of water, but they 
were refused.'" 
■ The sympathy of the Louisiana editor, so different from his 
brother of Richmond, was probably owing to the fact, that the 
murdered men were accused of being gamblers, and not aboli- 
tionists. 

When we said these five men were hung by the mob, we did 
not mean what Chancellor Harper calls " the democratic rabble." 
It seems the Cashier of a Bank, a man to whom the slaveholders 



36 

entrust the custody of their money, officiated on the occasion as 
Master of Ceremonies. 

A few days after the murders at Vicksburg, a negro named 
Vincent was sentenced by a Lynch club at Clinton, Miss., to 
receive 300 lashes, for an alleged participation in an intended 
insurrection. We copy from the Clinton Gazette. 

" On Wednesday evening Vincent was carried out to receive 
his stripes, but the assembled multitude were in favor of hang- 
ing him. A vote was accordingly fairly taken, and the hanging 
party had it by an overwhelming majority, as the politicians say. 
He was remanded to prison. On the day of execution a still 
larger crowd was assembled, and fearing that the public sentiment 
might have changed in regard to his fate, after everything favor- 
able to the culprit was alleged which could be said, the vote was 
taken, and his death was demanded by the people. In pursuance of 
this sentiment, so unequivocally expressed", he was led to a black 
jack and suspended to one of its branches — we approve en- 
tirely OF THE PROCEEDINGS ; THE PEOPLE HAVE ACTED PRO- 
PERLY." 

Thus, sixteen human beings were deliberately and publicly 
murdered, by assembled crowds, in different parts of the State of 
Mississippi, within little more than one week, in open defiance of 
the laws and Constitution of the State. 

And now we ask, what notice did the chief magistrate 
of Mississippi, sworn to support her Constitution, sworn to execute 
her laws — what notice, we ask, did he take of these horrible 
massacres ? Why, at the next session of the Legislature, Gov- 
ernor Lynch, addressing them in reference ..o abolition, remarked, 
" Mississippi has given a practical demonstration of feeling on 
this exciting subject, that may serve as an impressive admonition 
to offenders ; and however we may regret the occasion, we are 
constrained to admit, that necessity will sometimes prompt a sum- 
mary mode of trial and punishment unknown to the law." 

The iniquity and utter falsehood of this declaration, as applied 
to the transactions alluded to, are palpable. If the victims were 
innocent, no necessity required their murder. If guilty, no ne- 
cessity required their execution contrary to law. There was no 
difficulty in securing their persons, and bringing them to trial. 

In 1841, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Kentucky to 
murder a man. The assailants were arrested and lodged in jail 
for trial. Their fate is thus related in a letter by an eye-witness, 
published in the Cincinnati Gazette : — 



3V 

" Williamstown, Ky., July 11, 1841. 
" The unfortunate men, Lyman Couch and Smith Maythe, wert 
taken out of jail on Saturday about 12 o'clock, and taken to the 
ground where they committed the horrid 'deed on Utterback, and 
at 4 o'clock were hung on the tree where Utterback lay when 
his throat was cut. The jail was opened by force. I suppo e 
there were from four to seven hundred people engaged in it. 
Resistance was all in vain. There were three speeches made to 
the mob, but all in vain. They allowed the prisoners the privi- 
lege of clergy for about five hours, and then observed that they 
had made their peace with God, and they deserved to die. The 
mob was conducted with coolness and order, more so than I ever 
heard of on such occasions. But such a day was never wit- 
nessed in our little village, and I hope never will be again." 

The fact that this atrocity was perpetrated in "our lit lie vil- 
lage," and by a rural population, affords an emphatic and horrible 
indication of the state of morals in one of the oldest and best of 
our slave States. 

Would that we could here close these fearful narratives ; but 
another and more recent instance of that ferocious lawlessness which 
slavery has engendered, must still be added. The following facts 
are gathered from the Norfolk (Va.) Beacon of 19th Nov., 18 12. 

George W. Lore was, in April, 1842, convicted in Alabama, 
on circumstantial evidence, of the crime of murder. The Supreme 
Court granted a new trial, remarking, as is stated in another 
paper, that the testimony on which he was convicted was " unfit 
to be received by any court of justice recognized among civilized 
nations." In the mean time, Lore escaped from jail, and was 
afterwards arrested. He was seized by a mob, who put it to 
vote, whether he should be surrendered to the civil authority or 
be hung. Of 132 votes, 130 were for immediate death, and he 
was accordingly hung at Spring Hill, Bourbon County, on the 
4th November. 

And now, what think you of Mr. Calhoun's " most safe and 
stable basis for free institutions ?" Do you number trial by 
jury among free institutions? You see on what basis it 
rests — the will of the slaveholders. In New York we are 
told by high Southern authority, "you may find loafer, and 
loco-foco, and agrarian, and the most corrupt and depraved 
of rabbles." But we ask you, where would your life be most 
secure if charged with crime, amid the rabble of New York, 
or that of Clinton, Vicksburg, and Williamstown ? We think 
we have fully proved our assertion respecting the disregard 



38 

of human life felt by the slaveholding community ; and of course 
their contempt for those legal barriers which are erected for its 
protection. Let us now inquire more particularly how far slavery 
is indeed a stable basis', on which free institutions may securely 
rest. 

VIII. DISREGARD FOR CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGA- 
TIONS. 

Governor McDuffie, in his speech of 1834 to the South Caro- 
lina Legislature, characterized the Federal Constitution as "that 
miserable mockery of blurred, and obliterated, and tattered 
parchment." Judging from their conduct, the slaveholders, 
while fully concurring with the Governor in his contempt for the 
national parchment, have quite as little respect for their own 
State Constitution and Laws. 

The " tattered parchment" of which Mr. McDuffie speaks, de- 
clares that " the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." Art. 
IV. Sec. 2. Notwithstanding this express provison, there are in 
almost every slave State, if not in all, laws for seizing, imprison- 
ing, and then selling as slaves for life, citizens having black or 
yellow complexions, entering within their borders. This is done 
under pretence that the individuals are supposed to be fugitives 
from bondage. When circumstances forbid such a supposition, 
other devices are adopted, for nullifying the provision we have 
quoted. By a law of Louisiana, every free negro or mulatto, 
arriving on board any vessel as a mariner or passenger, shall be 
immediately imprisoned till the departure of the vessel, when he 
is to be compelled to depart in her. [f such free negro or mu- 
latto returns to the State, he is to be imprisoned for five years. 

The jailor of Savannah some time since reported ten stewards 
as being in his custody. These were free citizens of other States, 
deprived of their liberty solely on account of the complexion 
their Maker had given them, and in direct violation of the express 
language of the Federal Constitution. If any free negro or 
mulatto enters the State of Mississippi, for any cause however 
urgent, any white citizen may cause him to be punished by the 
Sheriff with thirty -nine lashes, and if he does not immediately 
thereafter leave the State, he is sold as a slave. 

Id Mar] land, a free negro or mulatto, coming into the State, is 
fined 120, and if he returns he is fined $500, and on default of 
payment, is sold &s i slate. Truly indeed have the slaveholders' 
rendered the Constitution a blurred, obliterated, and tattered 
parchment Bu1 whenever this same Constitution can, by the 



39 

grossest perversion, be made instrumental in upholding and per- 
petuating human bondage, then it acquires, for the time, a mar- 
vellous sanctity in their eyes, and they are seized with a holy 
indignation at the very suspicion of its profanation. 

The readiness with which Southern Governors prefer the most 
false and audacious claims, under color of Constitutional autho- 
rity, exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but 
little respected. 

In 1833, seventeen slaves effected their escape from Virginia 
in a boat, and finally reached New York. To recover their slaves 
as suck, a judicial investigation in New York would be necessary, 
and the various claimants would be required to prove their pro- 
perty. A more convenient mode presented itself. The Governor 
of Virginia made a requisition on the Executive of New York for 
them as fugitive felons, and on this requisition, a warrant was is- 
sued for their arrest and surrender. The pretended felony was 
stealing the boat in which they had escaped. 

In 1839, a slave escaped from Virginia on board of a vessel 
bound to New York. It was suspected, but without a particle of 
proof, that some of the crew had favored his escape ; and imme- 
diately the master made oath that three of the sailors, naming 
them, had feloniously stolen the slave ; and the Governor, well 
knowing there was no slave-market in New York, and that no 
man could there be held in slavery, had the hardihood to de- 
mand the surrender of the mariners, on the charge of grand lar- 
ceny ; and, in his correspondence with the Governor of New 
York, declared the slave was worth six or seven hundred dollars, 
and remarked that stealing was " recognized as a crime by all 
laws, human and divine." 

In 1841, a female slave, belonging to a man named Flournoy, 
in Georgia, was discovered on board a vessel about to sail for 
New York, and was recovered by her master. It was afterwards 
supposed, from the woman's story, that she had been induced by 
one of the passengers to attempt her escape. Whereupon Flour- 
noy made oath that John Greenman did feloniously steal his 
slave. But the Governor of New York had already refused to 
surrender citizens of his State, on a charge so palpably false and 
absurd. It was therefore deemed necessary to trump up a very 
different charge against the accused ; anoL hence Flournoy made 
a second affidavit, that John Greenman did feloniously steal and 
take away three blankets, two shaivls, three frocks, one pair of ear- 
rings, and two finger-rings, the property of deponent. Armed with 
these affidavits, the Governor demanded the surrender of Green- 
man under the Constitution. Not an intimation was given by His 
Excellency, when he made the demand, of the real facts of the 



case, which, in a subsequent correspondence, he was compelled 
to admit. It turned out that the woman, instead of being stolen, 
went voluntarily, and no doubt joyfully, on board the vessel ; and 
that the wearing apparel, etc.. were the clothes and ornaments 
worn by her ; nor was there a pretence that Greenman had ever 
touched them, or ever had them in his possession. 

We have said that the slaveholders hold their own laws and 
Constitutions in the same contempt as those of the Federal Go- 
vernment, whenever they conflict with the security and perma- 
nency of slavery. One of the most inestimable of constitutional 
privileges is trial by jury ; and this, as we have seen, is tram- 
pled under foot with impunity, at the mandate of the slave- 
holders. Even John Tyler, as it appears, is for inflicting 
summary punishment on abolitionists, by a Lynch club, " with- 
out resorting to any other tribunal." 

We now proceed to inquire how far they respect the liberty of 
speech and of the press. 

IX. LIBERTY OF SPEECH. 

The whole nation witnessed the long successful efforts of the 
slaveholders in Congress, by their various gag resolutions, and 
through the aid of recreant Northern politicians, to destroy all 
freedom of debate adverse to "the peculiar institution." They 
w. re themselves ready to dwell, in debate, on the charms of human 
Lge : but when a member took the other side of the question, 
then, indeed, he was out ol order, the constitution was out raged, and 
the Onion endangered. We all know the violent threats which 
have been used, to intimidate the friends of human rights from 
expressing their sentiments in the national legislature. "As 
long," says Governor Mc Duffle to the South Carolina Legislature, 
long as tli.' halls of Congress shall he open to the discussion 
of fchis question, we can have neither peace nor security." The 
Charleston Mercury is, od (hi- subject, very high authority; and 
ia L 837 its editor announced that " Public opinion in the South 
would now, we are sure, justify an immediate resort to force by 
tin- Southern delegation, even on the floor of Congress, were 
ihey forthwith to seize and drag from the hall any man who 
dared to insult them, as that eccentric old showman, John Quincy 
Adams has dared to do." 

When BO much malignity is manifested against the freedom of 
speech, in the very sanctuary of American liberty, it is not to be 
supposed that it will be tolerated in the house of bondage. We 
have already quoted a Southern paper, which declares that the 
moment " any private individual attempts to lecture us on the 



41 

evils and immorality of slavery, that very moment his tongue 
shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill." 

In Marion College, Missouri, there appeared some symptoms 
of anti-slavery feeling among the students. A Lynch club as- 
sembled, and the Rev. Dr. Ely, one of the professors, appeared 
before them, and denounced abolition, and submitted a series of 
resolutions passed by the faculty, and among them the following : 
" We do hereby forbid all discussions and public meetings among 
the students upon the subject of domestic slavery." The Lynch- 
ers were pacified, and neither tore down the college nor hung up 
the professors ; but before separating they resolved that they would 
oppose the elevation to office of any man entertaining abolition 
sentiments, and would withhold their countenance and support 
from every such member of the community. Indeed, it is obvious 
to any person attentive to the movements of the South, that the 
slaveholders dread domestic far more than foreign interference 
with their darling system. 



X. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

The Constitutions of all the slave States guarantee, in the most 
solemn and explicit terms, the Liberty of the Press ; but it is 
well understood that there is one exception to its otherwise un- 
bounded license — Property in human flesh is too sacred to be as- 
sailed by the press. The attributes of the Deity may be dis- 
cussed, but not the rights of the master. The characters of 
public, and even of private men, may be vilified at pleasure, 
provided no reproach is flung upon the slaveholder. Every 
abuse in Church or State may be ferreted out and exposed, ex- 
cept the cruelties practiced upon the slaves, unless when they 
happen to exceed the ordinary standard of cruelty established 
by general usage. Every measure of policy may be advocated, 
except that of free labor ; every question of right may be ex- 
amined, except that of a man to himself ; every dogma in the- 
ology may be propagated, except that of the sinfulness of the 
slave code. The very instant the press ventures beyond its pre- 
scribed limits, the constitutional barriers erected for its protection 
sink into the dust, and a censorship, the more stern and vindictive 
from being illegal, crushes it into submission. The midnight 
burglary perpetrated upon the Charleston Post-office, and the 
conflagration of the anti-slavery papers found in it, are well 
known. These' papers had been sent to distinguished citizens, 
but it was deemed inexpedient to permit them to read facts and 



m ■ 

arguments against slavery. Vast pains have been taken to keep 
slaveholders as well as others ignorant of every fact and argu- 
ment that militates against the system. Hence Mr. Calhoun's 
famous bill, authorizing every Southern post-master to abstract 
from the mails every paper relating to slavery. Hence the insane 
efforts constantly made to expurgate the literature of the world 
of all recognition of the rights of black men. Novels, annuals, 
poems, and histories, containing sentiments hostile to human 
bondage, are proscribed at the South, and Northern publishers 
have had the extreme baseness to publish mutilated editions for 
the Southern market.* 

In some of the slave States laws have been passed establishing 
a censorship of the press, for the exclusive and special benefit of 
the slaveholders. Some time since an anti-slavery pamphlet was 
mailed at New York, directed to a gentleman in Virginia. Pre- 
sently a letter was received from William Wilson, post-master at 
Lexington, Va., saying — 

" I have to advise you that a law passed at the last session of 
the Legislature of this State, which took effect on the first day 
of this month, makes it the duty of the post-masters or their 
assistants to report to some magistrate (under penalty of from 
$50 to $200), the receipt of all such publications at his office ; 
and if, on examination, the magistrate is of opinion they come 
under the provision of the law, it is his duty to have them 'burnt 
in his presence — which operation toas performed on the above men- 
tioned pamphlet this morning? 1 

The Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, a well-known zealous oppo- 
nent of abolition, edited, in 1835, "The Baltimore Religious 
Magazine." A number of this magazine contained an article 
from a correspondent, entitled "Bible-Slavery." The tone of 
this article not suiting the slave-breeders of Petersburg (Virg.), 
the subscribers were deprived of the numbers forwarded to them 
through the post-office of that town. The magazines were taken 
from i!m- Office, and on the 8th May, 1838, were burnt in the 
Btreet, before the door of the public reading-room, in the presence 
and by the direction of the Mayor and Recorder! ! 

It is surely unnecessary to remark, that this Virginia law is in 



* The Earners, of New York, in reply to a letter from the South, com. 
plaining of the anti-slavery sentiments in a book they had recently pub- 
lishe i. stated, "since the receipt of your letter we have published an 
edition of the ' Woods and Fields,' in which the offensive matter has been 
omitted." 



43 

contemptuous violation of the Constitution of Virginia, and of the 
authority of the Federal Government. The act of Congress 
requires each post-master to deliver the papers which come to his 
office to the persons to whom they are directed, and they require 
him to take an oath to fulfil his duty. The Virginia law imposes 
duties on an officer over whom they have no control, utterly at 
variance with his oath, and the obligations under which he as- 
sumed the office. If the postmaster must select, under a heavy 
penalty, for a public bonfire, all papers bearing on slavery, why 
may he not be hereafter required to select, for the same fate, all 
papers hostile to Popery ? Yet similar laws are now in force in 
various slave States. 

Not only is this espionage exercised over the mail, but mea- 
sures are taken to keep the community in ignorance of what is 
passing abroad in relation to slavery, and what opinions are else- 
where held respecting it. 

On the 1st of August, 1842, an interesting address was deli- 
vered in Massachusetts, by the late Dr. Channing, in relation to 
West India emancipation, embracing, as was natural and proper, 
reflections on American slavery. This address w T as copied into a 
New York weekly paper, and the number containing it was of- 
fered for sale, as usual, by the agent of the periodical at Charles- 
ton. Instantly the agent was prosecuted by the South Carolina 
Association, and was held to bail in the sum of 81,000, to answer 
for his crime. Presently after, this same agent received for sale 
a supply of " Dickens' Notes on the United States," but having 
before his eyes the fear of the slaveholders, he gave notice in the 
newspapers, that the book would " be submitted to highly intelli- 
gent members of the South Carolina Association for inspection, 
and IF the sale is approved by them, it will be for sale — if not, 
not." And so the population of one of the largest cities of the 
slave region were not permitted to read a book they were all 
burning with impatience to see, till the volume had been first in- 
spected by a self-constituted board of censors ! The slaveholders, 
however, were in this instance afraid to put their power to the 
test — the people might have rebelled if forbidden to read the 
"Notes," and hence one of the most powerful, effective anti- 
slavery tracts yet issued from the press was permitted to be cir- 
culated, because people ivould read what Dickens had written. 
Surely, you will not accuse us of slander, when we say that the 
slaveholders have abolished the liberty of the press. Remember 
the assertion of the editor of the Missouri Argus : " Abolition 
editors in the slave States will not dare to avow their opinions: 
it would be instant death to them." 



44 

XL MILITARY WEAKNESS. 

A distinguished foreigner, after traveling in the Southern 
Slates, remarked that the very aspect of the country bore testi- 
mony that, defenceless and exposed as they are, it would be 
madness to hazard a civil war ; and surely no people in, the 
world have more cause to shrink from an appeal to arms. We. 
find at the South no one element of military strength. Slavery, 
as we have seen, checks the progress of population, of the arts, 
of enterprise, and of industry. But above all, the laboring class, 
which in other countries affords the materials of which armies are 
composed, is regarded at the South as a most deadly foe ; and 
the siirht of a thousand negroes with arms in their hands, would 
send a thrill of terror through the stoutest hearts, and excite a 
panic which no number of the veteran troops of Europe could 
produce. Even now, laws are in force to keep arms out of the 
hands of a population which ought to be a reliance in danger, but 
which is dreaded by day and night, in peace and war. 

During our revolutionary war, when the idea of negro emanci- 
pation had scarcely entered the imagination of any of our citizens 
— when there were no "fanatic abolitionists," no "incendiary 
publications," no " treasonable " anti-slavery associations ; in 
those palmy days of slavery, no small portion of the Southern 
militia were withdrawn from the defence of the country to pro- 
tect the slaveholders from the vengeance of their own bondmen ! 
This you would be assured was abolition slander, were not the 
fact recorded in the national archives. The Secret Journal of 
Congress (Vol. L, p. 105) contains the following remarkable and 
instructive record : — 

"March 20th, 1779. — The Committee appointed to take into 
uonsideration the circumstances of the Southern States, and the 
ways and means for their safety and defence, report, That the 
State of South Carolina (as represented by the delegates of the 
said State, and by Mr. linger, who has come hither at the re- 
quest of the Governor of said State, on purpose to explain the 
particular circumstances thereof,) is unable to make any effectual 
efforts with militia, by reason of the great proportion of citizens 
necessary to remain at home, to prevent insurrection among the 
negroes, and to prevent the desertion of them to the enemy. 
Thai the state of the country, and the great number of these 
people among them, expose the inhabitants to great danger, from 
the endeavors of the enemy to excite them to revolt or desert." 

At the first census, in 1790, eleven years after this report, and 



45 

when the slaves had unquestionably greatly increased their num- 
bers, they were only 107,094 fewer than the whites. If, then, 
these slaves exposed their masters " to great danger," and the 
militia of South Carolina were obliged to stay at home to protebt 
their families, not from the foreign invaders, but the domestic 
enemies, what would be the condition of the Jittle blustering nul- 
lifying State, with a foreign army on her shores, and 335,000 
slaves ready to aid it, while her own white population, militia 
and all, is but as two whites to three blacks ? 

Slaveholders, in answer to the abolitionists, are wont to boast 
of the fidelity and attachment of their slaves ; among themselves 
they freely avow their dread of these same faithful and attached 
slaves, and are fertile in expedients to guard against their ven- 
geance. 

It is natural that we should fear those whom we are conscious 
of having deeply injured, and all history and experience testify 
that fear is a cruel passion. Hence the shocking seventy with 
which, in all slave countries, attempts to shake oft" an unrighteous 
yoke are punished. So late even as 1822, certain slaves in 
Charleston were suspected of an intention to rise and assert their 
freedom. No overt act was committed, but certain blacks were 
found who professed to testify against their fellows, and some, it 
is said, confessed their intentions. 

On this ensued one of the most horrible judicial butcheries on 
record. It is not deemed necessary, in the chivalrous Palmetto 
State, to give grand and petit juries the trouble of indicting and 
trying slaves, even when their lives are at stake. A court, con- 
sisting of two Justices of the Peace and five freeholders, was con- 
vened for the trial of the accused, and the following were the 
results of their labors : — 

July 2 6 hanged, 

"12 2 " 

"26 22 " 

"30 4 " 

August 9 1 " 

Total 35 

Now, let it be remembered, that this sacrifice of human life 
was made by one of the lowest tribunals in the State ; a tribunal 
consisting of two petty magistrates and five freeholders, appointed 
for the occasion, not possessing a judicial rank, nor professing to 
be learned in the law ; in short, a tribuual which would not be 
trusted to decide the title to an acre of ground — we refer not to 
the individuals composing the court, but to the court itself ; — a 



46 

court which has not power to take away the land of a white man, 
hangs black men by dozens ! 

Listen to the confessions of the slaveholders with regard to 
their happy dependents ; the men who are so contented under 
the patriarchia! system, and whose condition might well excite 
the envy of northern laborers, " the great democratic rabble." 

Governor Hayne, in his message of 1833, warned the South 
Carolina Legislature, that "a state of military preparation must 
always be with us a state of perfect domestic security. A pro- 
found peace, and consequent apathy, may expose us to the dan- 
ger of domestic insurrection" So it seems the happy slaves are 
to be kept from insurrection by a state of military preparation. 
We have seen that, during the revolutionary war, the Carolina 
militia were kept at home watchiag the slaves, instead of meeting 
the British in the field ; but now it seems the same task awaits 
the militia in a season of profound peace. Another South Caro - 
linian* admonishes his. countrymen thus : " Let it never be for- 
gotten that our negroes are truly the Jacobins of the country ; 
that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy, the com- 
mon ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY, AND THE BARBARIANS WHO 
WOULD, IF THEY COULD, BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF OUR RACE." 

Again, " Hatred to the whites, with the exception, in some 
cases, of attachment to the person and family of the master, is 
nearly universal among the black population. We have then a 
foe, cherished in our very bosoms — a foe willing to draw our 
life-blood whenever the opportunity is offered ; in the mean 
time intent on doing us all the mischief in his power." — Southern 
Religious Telegraph. 

In a debate in the Kentucky Legislature, in 1841, Mr. Harding, 
opposing the repeal of the law prohibiting the importation of 
slaves from other States, and looking forward to the time when 
the blacks would greatly out-number the whites, exclaimed : 

" In such a state of things, suppose an insurrection of the slaves 
to take place. The master has become timid and fearful, the 
slave bold and daring — the white men, overpowered with a sense 
of superior numbers on the part of the slaves, cannot be embo- 
died together ; every man must guard his own hearth and fo'eside. 
No man would even dare for an hour to leave his own habitation ; 
if he did, he would expect on his return to find his wife and 
children massacred. But the slaves, with but little more than 



* The author of " A Refutation of the Calumnies inculcated against 
the Southern and Western States." 



47 

the shadow of opposition before them, armed with ti, 
riess of superior force and superior numbers on their side, ani- 
mated with the hope of liberty, and maddened with the spirit of 
revenge, embody themselves in every neighborhood, and furiously 
march over the country, visiting every neighborhood with all the 
horrors of civil war and bloodshed. And thus the yoke would 
be transferred from the black to the white man, and the master 
fall a bleeding victim to his own slave." 

Such are the terrific visions which are constantly presenting 
themselves to the affrighted imaginations of the slaveholders ; 
such the character which, among themselves, they attribute to 
their own domestics. 

Attend to one more, and that one an extraordinary confession : 

" We, of the South, are emphatically surrounded by a danger- 
ous class of beings — degraded and stupid savages, who, if they 
could but once entertain the idea, that immediate and uncondi- 
tional death would not be their portion, would re-act the St. Do- 
mingo tragedy. But a consciousness, with all their stupidity, that 
a ten-fold force, superior in discipline, if not in barbarity, would 
gather from the four corners of the United States, and slaughter 
them, keeps them in subjection. But to the non-slaveholding 
States particularly, are we indebted for a permanent safeguard 
against insurrection. Without their assistance, the whit? popula- 
tion of the South would be too weak to quitt the innate desire for 
liberty, which is ever ready to act itself out with every rational 
creature." — Maysmlle In telligencer. 

And now we ask you, if all these declarations and confessions 
be true — and who can doubt it — what must be their inevitable 
condition, should their soil be invaded by a foreign foe, bearing 
the standard of emancipation ? 

In perfect accordance with the above confession, that to the 
non-slaveholding States the South is indebted for a permanent 
safeguard against insurrection, Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, 
uttered these pregnant words in a debate, in 1842, in Congress, 
" The dissolution of the Union will be the dissolution of 

SLAVERY." 

The action of the Federal Government is, we know, controlled 
by the slave interest ; and what testimony_does that action bear 
to the military weakness of the South ? Let the reports of its 
hio;h functionaries answer. 

"The Secretary of War, in his report for 1S42, remarked, "The 
Avorks intended for the more remote Southern portion of our terri- 
tory, particularly require attention. Indications are already made of 



46 

_ ns of the worst character against that region, in the event of 

ities from a certain quarter, to which we cannot be insensi- 
ble." The Secretary's fears had been evidently excited by the 
organization of black regiments in the British West Indies, and 
the threats of certain English writers, that a war between the 
two countries would result in the liberation of the slaves. The 
report from the Quarter-Master, General Jessup, a Southern man, 
betravs the same anxiety, and in less am _ - terms : u In the 
event of a war," says he, " with either of the great European 
powers possessing the West Indies, there will be dan- 

ger of the peninsula of Florida being occupied by BLACKS from 
the Islands. A proper regard for the security of our Southern 
States requires, that prompt and efficient measures be adopted to 
prevent such a state of thir _ The Secretary of the Nary, a 

slaveholder, hints his fears in cautious circumlocution. Speaking 
of the event of a war with any considerable maritime power, he 

•' It would be a war of incursions aimed at revolution. The 
r - blow would be struck at us through our institutions ;" he 
means, of course, M the peculiar institution." He then proceeds 
to show that the enemy would seek success " in arraying, what 
are supposed to be, the hostile elements of our social system 
against each other ;" and he admits, that " even in the best event, 
war on our own soil would be the more expensive, the more em- 
barrassing, and the more horrible in it^ effects, by compelling us 
at the same time to oppose an enemy in the field, and to guard 
against all attempts to subvert our social system'' In plain lan- 
a e, an invading enemv would strike the first blow at the slave 
- m, and thus aim at revolution, — a revolution that would give 
liberty to two and a half millions of human beings : and that such 
a war would be verv embarrassing to the slaveholders, and the 
more horrible, because, as formerly in South Carolina, a large 
share of their military force would necessarily be employed, not 
in fighting the enemv, but in guarding the social, that is, the 
" patriarch .1." 

N persons are more sensible of their hazardous situation than 

the slaveholders themselves, and hence, as is common with 

people who are us of their own weakness, they 

apt to supply the want of strensrth by a bullying insolence, 

hoping to effect by intimidation what they well know can be ef- 

1 in no other way. This game has long been played, and 
with _ in Congress. It has been attempted in our 

- with Great Britain, and has signally failed. 

. slaveholders whatever may be their vaunts, are conscious 
of their military weakness, and shrink from any contest which 
may cause a foreign army to plant the standard of emancipation 



49 

upon their soil. The very idea of an armed negro startles their 
fearful imaginations. This is disclosed on innumerable occasions, 
but was conspicuously manifested in a debate in the Senate. In 
July, 1842, a Bill to regulate enlistments in the naval service be- 
ing under consideration, Mr. Calhoun proposed an amendment, 
that neoroes should be enlisted only as cooks and stewards. He 
thought it a matter of great consequence not to admit blacks into 
our vessels of national defence. Mr. Benton thought all arms, 
whether on land or sea, ought to be borne by the white race. 

Mr. Bagby. " In the Southern portion of the Union, the great 
object was to keep amis and a knowledge of arms out of the hands 
of the blacks. The subject addressed itself to every Southern 
heart. Self-preservation was the first law of nature, and the 
South must look to that." 

On the motion of Mr. Preston, the bill was so amended as to 
include the army. 

And think you that men, thus in awe of their own dependents, 
shuddering at a musket in the hands of a black, and with a popu- 
lation of two millions and a half of these dreaded slaves, will 
expose themselves to the tremendous consequences of a union 
between their domestic and foreign enemies ? Of the four who 
voted against the British treaty, probably not one would have 
given the vote he did, had he not known to a certainty that the 
treaty would be ratified. 

Think not we are disposed to ridicule the fears of the slave- 
holders, or to question their personal courage. God knows their 
perils are real, and not imaginary : and who can question, that 
with a hostile British army in the heart of Virginia or Alabama, 
the whole slave region would presently become one vast scene of 
horror and desolation ? Heretofore the invaders of our soil were 
themselves interested in slave property : now they would be zea- 
lous emancipationists, and they would be accompanied by the 
most terrific vision which could meet the eye of a slaveholder, 
regiments of black troops, fully equipped and disciplined. Surely 
such a state of things might well appal the bravest heart, and 
palsy the stoutest arm. . 

We have called your attention to the practical influence ot 
slavery on various points deeply affecting the public prosperity 
and happiness. These are : 

1. Increase of population. 7. Disregard for tart 

2 State of education. 8. Disregard for constitutional 

3. Industry and enterprise. obligations. 

4 Feeling toward the laboring 9. Liberty of speech. 

" c i a c S eg 10. Liberty of the press. 

5. State of' religion. 11. Military weakness. 

6. State of morals. 

You will surely agree with us, that in many of these particu- 

o 



50 

lars, the Southern States are sunk far below the ordinary con- 
dition of civilized nations. 

Let us inquire -whether the inferior and unhappy condition of 
the slave States can be ascribed to any natural disadvantage, or 
to any partial or unjust legislation by the Federal Government? 

In the first place?, the slave States cannot pretend that they 
have not received their full share of the national domain, and that 
the narrowness of their territorial limits has retarded the de- 
velopment of their enterprise and resources. The area of the 
slave States is nearly double that of the free. New York has 
acquired the title of the Empire State ; yet she is inferior in size 
to Virginia, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana, or North Carolina. 

Nor can it be maintained that the free States are in advance of 
the slave States, because from an earlier settlement they had the 
start in the race of improvement. Virginia is not only the largest, 
but the oldest settled State in the confederacy. She, together 
with Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina, 
were all settled before Pennsylvania. 

Nor will any slaveholder admit, that Providence has scattered 
his gifts with a more sparing hand at the South than at the 
the North. The richness of their soil, the salubrity of their 
climate, the number and magnitude of their rivers, are themes on 
which they delight to dwell. Hence the moral difference between 
the two sections of our republic must arise from other than natu- 
ral causes. It appears also that this difference is becoming 
wider and wider. Of this fact we could give various proofs ; 
but let one suffice. 

At the first census in 1790, the free population of the present free States and 

Territories was 1,930,125 

" of the slave States and Territories, 1.394.847 

Difference, 535 278 

By the last census, 1S40. the same population in the free States and Territo- 
ries was 9 7go 4 j 5 
In the slave States and Territories, 4.793.738 

Difference, 4,988,677 

Thus it appears that in 1790 the free population of the South 
was 72 per cent, of that of the North, and that in 1840 it was 
pnlj 49 per cent.; while the difference in 1840 is more than 
mm times a- greal as it was in 1790. 

Fifty years have given the North an increased preponderance 
<>1 about lour and a half millions of free citizens. Another fifty 
years will increase this preponderance in a vastly augmented 
ratio. And now we ask you, why this downward course? 
Is it because the interests of the slaveholders are not repre- 
sented m the national councils? Let us see. We have al- 
ready shown you that the free population is only 49 per cent, 
ot that of the Northern States; that is, the inhabitants 



51 

of the free States are more than double the free inhabitants of 
the slave States. Now, what is the proportion of members of 
Congress from the two sections ? 

In the Senate, the slave States have precisely as many as the 
free ; and in the lower House, their members are 65 per cent, of 
those from the free States.* 

The Senate has a veto on every law ; and as one half of that 
body are slaveholders, it follows, of course, that no law can be 
passed without their consent. Nor has any bill passed the Sen- 
ate, since the organization of the government, but by the votes of 
slaveholders. It is idle, therefore, for them to impute their de- 
pressed condition to unjust and partial legislation, since they have 
from the very first controlled the action of Congress. Not a law 
has been passed, not a treaty ratified, but by their votes. 

Nor is this all. Appointments under the federal government 
are made by the President, with the consent of the Senate, and 
of course the slaveholders have, and always have had, a veto on 
every appointment. There is not an officer of the federal gov- 
ernment to whose appointment slaveholding members of the 
Senate have not consented. Yet all this gives but an inadequate 
idea of the political influence exercised by the people of the slave 
States in the election of President, and consequently over the policy 
of his administration. In consequence of the peculiar apportion- 
ment of Presidential Electors among the States, and the opera- 
tion of the rule of federal numbers — whereby, for the purpose of 
estimating the representative population, five slaves are counted 
as three white men — most extraordinary results are exhibited at 
every election of President. In the election of 1848, the Electors 
chosen were 290 : of these 169 were from the free, and 121 
from the slave States. 

The popular vote in the free States was 2,029,551 

or one elector to 12,00V voters. 
The popular vote in the slave States was 845,050 

or one elector to 7,545 voters. | 

Even this disproportion, enormous as it is, is greatly aggra- 
vated in regard to particular States. 



* 135 from the free and 88 members from the slave States. Accord- 
ing to free population, the South would have only 66 members. 

t South Carolina had 9 electors, chosen by the Legislature. These 
are deducted in the calculation. 



New York ga nd had 36 electors. 

Virginia i 

Maryland - gave 242,547 " " 36 

N. Carolina i 

Ohio ' gave 328,489 " 28 " 

Delaware 

Georgia 

Louisiana 

Alabama J>gave 237,811 " M 38 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Texas 

These facts address themselves to the understanding of all, 
and prove, beyond cavil, that the slave States have a most unfair 
and unreasonable representation in Congress, and a very dispro- 
portionate share in the election of President. 

2sor can these States complain that they are stinted in the 
distribution of the patronage of the national government. The 
rule of federal numbers, confined by the Constitution to the 
apportionment of representatives, has been extended, by the influ- 
ence of the slaveholders, to other and very different subjects. 
Thus, the distribution among the States of the surplus revenue, 
and of the proceeds of the public lands, was made according to 
this same iniquitous rule. 

It is not to be supposed that the slaveholders have failed to 
avail themselves of their influence in the federal government. A 
very brief statement will convince you, that if the)' are now feeble 
and emaciated, it is not because they have been deprived of their 
share of the loaves and fish 

By law, midshipmen and cadets, at West Point, are appointed 
according to the Federal ratio ; thus have the slaveholders secured 
to themselves an additional number of officers in the Army and 
Isavy, on account of their sla-v 

3ect for a moment on the vast patronage wielded by the 

President of the United States, and then recollect, that should 

the present incumbent (General Taylor) serve his full term, the 

office will have been filled no less" than fifty -two years out of 

-four by slaveholders !* 

Of 21 Secretaries of State, appointed up to 5th March, 1849, 
only six have been taken from the free States. 

an out of 60, the chair of the House of Repre- 
sentatives has been filled and its Committees appointed by slave- 
holders. 



• Except one month by General Harrison 



53 



Of the Judges of the Supreme Court, 18 have been taken 
from the slave, and but U from the free States. 

In 1842, the United States were represented at forty n Courts 
by 19 Ministers and Charges d' Affaires. Of these tat Offices, 
no less than 13 were assigned to slaveholders ! 

Surely, surely, if the South be wanting in every element o\ 
prosperity— if ignorance, barbarity and poverty be her character- 
's \t is not because she has not exercised her due influence in 
the general government, or received her share of its honors and 
emoluments. 

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE. 
If then with all the natural and political advantages we 
have en— d, the progress of the slave States £ s - 
ward and has been so, compared with the othei sections 
he count, v since the first organization of the Government what 
"e the an icipa ions of the distant future, which sober reflection 
authorize u to form ? The causes which now retard he m- 
SSSTrf their population must continue to operate, so long as 
slavery ass Emigrants from the North, and from foreign 
otntrUwdhas af present avoid their border -tlnn M 
no attractions will be found for virtue and . radu "' ,',"",. _^ 
other hand many of the young and enterprising will ft i horn 

he lassitude, tlfe anarchy, ^.^T^ZSSmJS. 
slavery, and seek their fortunes inlands where law atto.ds pi 

w ni n conrinrtotcrease P in a ratio far beyond the whites, and wdl 

den for a few lordly planters . a es wu i increase 

that the number and ^^^^^i^^T 
in a much greater ratio than that of their masters. 



54 



In 1790 the whites in N, Carolina were to the slaves as 

2.80 to 1, now as 1.97 to 1 
S. Carolina, " 1.31 to 1, « 79 to 1 

Georgia, » 1.76 to 1, « 1.44 to 1 

Tennessee, " 13.35 to 1, " 3.49 to 1 
Kentucky, » 5.16 to 1, « 3.23 to 1 

Maryland and Virginia, the great breeding States, have re- 
duced then; stock within the last few years, having been tempted, 
by high prices, to ship off thousands and tens of thousands to the 
markets of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. But these 
markets are already glutted, and human flesh has fallen in value 
from t 50 to 75 per cent. Nor is it probable that the great staple 
of Virginia and Maryland will hereafter afford a bSunty on its 
production. In these States slave labor is unprofitable, and the 
bondman is of but little value, save as an article of exportation, 
lhe cotton cultivation in the East Indies, by cheapening the arti- 
cle, wil 1 close the markets in the South, and thus it guarantees 
the abolition 01 slavery in the breeding States. When~it shall be 
found no longer profitable to raise slaves for the market, the 
stock on hand will be driven South and sold for what it may 
fetch and free labor substituted in its place. This process will 
be attended with results disastrous to the cotton States. To 
Virginia and Maryland, it will open a new era of industry, pros- 
perity and wealth ; and the industrious poor, the "mean whites" 
of the South, will remove within their borders, thus leaving the 
slaveholders more defenceless than ever. 

And what will be the condition of such of the poor whites as 
shall then remain in the slave States ? The change to which we 
have referred will necessarily aggravate every present evil Ig- 
norance, vice, idleness, lawless violence, dread of insurrection 
anarchy, and a haughty and vindictive aristocracy will all com- 
bine with augmented energy in crushing them to the earth 
And from what quarter can they look for redemption ? Think 
you the planting nobility will ever grant freedom to their serfs 
from sentiments of piety or patriotism ? Remember that the 
clergy of all sects and ranks, many of them "Christian brokers 
m the trade of blood," unite in bestowing their benediction on 
the system as a Christian institution, and in teaching the slave- 
holders that they wield the whip as European monarchs the 
sceptre, "by the grace of God." Remember that the boautiful 
and affecting contrast between the prosperitv of the North and 
the desolation of the South, already presented to you, was drawn 
by W. C. Preston, of lianging notoriety. The great slaveholders 



55 

have no idea of surrendering the personal importance and the 
political influence they derive from their slaves. The Calhoun^, 
Footes, and Prestons, all go for everlasting slavery. 

Unquestionably there are many of the smaller slaveholders 
who would embrace abolition sentiments, were they permitted 
to examine the subject ; but at present they are kept in ignorance. 
T f then the fetters of the slave are not to be broken by the master, 
by whom is he to be liberated ? In the course of time, a hostile 
army, invited by the weakness or the arrogance of the South, 
may land on her shores. Then, indeed, emancipation will be 
given, but the gift may be bathed in the blood of the whites and 
of their children. Or the People — for they will be the People 
— may resolve to be free, and the dearest interests of thousands 
may be sacrificed in the contest. 

Such, inhabitants of ISTew Mexico and California, is the detest- 
able institution which a few haughty and selfish men are endeav- 
oring to force upon you in order to augment their own political 
power, and to open new markets for their human cattle ; and 
such are the calamities which their success will entail upon you 
and your posterity for ages to come. Every dictate of patriot- 
ism and of Christian benevolence impels us to resist to the utter- 
most the extension of this abomination of desolation over the 
new, fair and vast addition recently made to our Federal Union. 
Much as we may prize this splendid acquisition, may it be for- 
ever lost to us rather than it should be converted by the Amer- 
ican people into a region of ignorance, vice, misery and degrada- 
tion by the establishment of human bondage. We wish you to 
be a free and happy portion of our great Republic, but it the 
condition of your union with us be your submission to the man- 
dates of the "slaveholders, we counsel you, we implore you by 
all your obligations to your God, yourselves, your children, and 
to the opinions of the world, to spurn the loathsome, the sinful 
condition. Yon have all the elements essential to the creation of 
a great, prosperous and independent empire. If you cannot be 
free, happy and virtuous in union with us, be free, happy and vir- 
tuous under a government of your own. But you are not reduced 
to such an alternative. The slaveholders have refused you a terri- 
torial government — form one for yourselves, and declare that no 
slave shall taint the air you breathe. Let no feudal lord with 
his hosts of serfs come among you to rob you of your equal 
share of the rich deposits of your soil— tolerate no servile 
caste kept in ignorance and degradation, to minister to the power 
and wealth of an oppressive aristocracy. Be firm and resolute 
in declaring for independence, unless exempted, from the curse 
of slavery, and the whole North will rally in your behalf. The 



56 

slaveholders are losing their influence, and are divided a mono 
themselves, while their northern allies, withering under the 
scorn of public opinion, are daily deserting their standard. Be 
true to yourselves, and your northern friends will be true to you. 
and ere long you will be received into the Union on the same 
liberal, safe and honorable terms on which your neighbors of 
Oregon have already been admitted. A glorious future of p:r.v 
er, opulence and happiness opens before you. Up, quit your- 
selves like men, and may the favor of God and the blessings of 
generations to come rest upon you. 



William Jay, Christopher Rush, 

Arthur Tappan, William Lillie, 

Simeon S. Jocelyn, S. W. Benedict, 

Samuel E. Cornish, George Whipple, 

W t illiam E. Whiting, William Johnston, 

Joshua Leavitt, J. Warner, 

J. W. C. Pennington, Charles B. Ray, 

Lewis Tappan, Austin F. Williams, 

Arnold Buffum, Thomas Ritter, M. D., 

Luther Lee, Alexander Macdonald, 
Hiram P. Crozier. 

New York, August, 1 8 



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